


All's Fair in Lust and War

by A_Certain_Allure



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Burlesque, Character(s) of Color, Dominance, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Fallout Kink Meme, Female Character of Color, Forced Masturbation, Forced Orgasm, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Interracial Relationship, Kink, Past Sexual Abuse, Plus Size Female Character, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sadism, Sexual Slavery, Sexual Tension, Size Difference, Slavery, Stalking, Strip Tease, Stripping, Submission, Vulpes Inculta is evil but you know that already, fat female character, plus size character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-14 08:01:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 34
Words: 77,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10532265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Certain_Allure/pseuds/A_Certain_Allure
Summary: Aleah is a busty burlesque performer at the Aces Theater, dealing with a steep debt. Vulpes Inculta is on an undercover mission at the Tops casino, awaiting the Courier. When their paths cross, he decides that she is the ideal target for his new, personal mission. Whether she reciprocates is of no concern...Pairing is interracial and female character is plus size.





	1. A Stripper on the Strip

**Author's Note:**

> This work is not officially from a Fallout kinkmeme prompt but rather something I thought up after reading a bunch of kinkmeme fics starring everyone's favorite resident sadist, Vulpes Inculta, and here is yet another rendition of my plus size original female character. This is to satisfy an itch I'm not proud of but nonetheless am using this platform as an outlet for. Aside from the violence, this fic is absolutely unabashedly self-indulgent. Then again... look at the site we're on. Idk, man.
> 
> It starts off a bit slow and maybe corny, but the intro is just a setup and a means to an end. Giant trigger warning for some seriously inappropriate eventual shit. It is pre-Battle at Hoover Dam, in a world where M!Courier sides with the Legion, although he won't feature heavily in the pre-Battle parts, if at all. I thought of using F!Courier but I just really care about burlesque and Fallout and what better way to combine the two than to write about a stripper on the Strip? Additionally I think the Courier would be too rugged and capable to be stuck in the situations that follow. Even though he's not in the first chapter, there's a bunch of Vulpes fucking with people's shit, but chances are that's why you'll want to read it. 
> 
> Side note: I actually have only finished the main questline as an independent AFAB courier, so I don't know exactly how things go with the other variables. I'm playing through it now with an evil karma Male Courier and will side with Legion, but I didn't want to wait until I finished to begin writing this. I have also taken some creative liberties with certain canon characters, namely Tommy Torini, so I hope no one finds that upsetting.
> 
> Feedback keeps me going!

**Vegas, June 3rd, 2281: evening**  
  
  
Somehow, even after decades of nuclear war, hunger, pain, destruction and death, the Western world managed to come full circle. Humans continued to tear one another to bits, but they still needed their various forms of recourse and sexually charged entertainment. Really, other than the decimated surroundings, mutated animals and irradiated quality of food, little had changed in the last couple centuries since the war—least of all Vegas.

Las Vegas turned into New Vegas, but it still bore the spirit of its ostentatious and bawdy former self. Men still flooded the Strip to throw away their earnings on the male fantasy: booze, breasts and the prospect of even more earnings. Those men—and her talent, naturally, kept Aleah the Eight in business. Well, they kept her in someone else’s business, at least.

Aleah and Beatrix sat beside one another in the dressing room of the Aces Theater in the Tops Casino, Aleah primping for her upcoming performance and Beatrix fussing idly with the wild amount of accessories in the room. With expert hands, Aleah applied foundation to her deep brown skin, mildly irked inside that the makeup was two shades too light-- finding makeup in the Wasteland that wasn't moldy or irradiated beyond recognition was already a difficult task. She resolved that she would never find a true match, although sometimes the right amount of red soil from Red Rock Canyon was enough to darken the pigment a bit.  
  
That was a trick Aleah learned from her tribal mother, a woman who left her home and scavenged most of her life before settling down with a poor farmer in the Wasteland. Enter Aleah.  
  
"Where do you even find these things in the Wasteland?" Beatrix asked, holding up a plush and almost obscenely luxurious feather boa like it was a foreign specimen that might wriggle to life at any moment. Aleah shrugged.  
  
"It's Vegas, baby," was all she said as she leaned into to the dimly lit vanity of the dressing room and applied rouge to her lips. Several bulbs on the vanity were missing, and somehow one cracked one was still going, its faint buzz comforting her on a subconscious level. She loved it in this room.  
  
Beatrix found the answer wanting. "That ain't an answer, girl." Aleah interrupted her routine to educate her friend, rolling her eyes.  
  
"Yes it is, you uncultured ghoul. Pre-war, Vegas was the hub of top tier entertainment just like it is now, only they had even more luxury. Hotels, cars, casinos, and showgirls! Vegas was known for its showgirls," Aleah beamed, her skin lit from beneath just at the thought. Beatrix listened with wonder. "They had more baubles and bits and feathers than you could ever imagine. I found this book on prewar costumes with a woman who had a headdress with feathers reaching wide as you are tall!"  
  
The ghoul sat in silent awe. "I been around some time but I'm from the southeast so I ain't seen nothing like that. But how do YOU get this stuff?" she asked pointedly.  
  
"The basements of these joints are filled with costumes and other fun stuff, just gathering dust," Aleah began, puffing some blush onto her cheeks. "My guess is, when shit went down, everyone was too busy looking for food and bullets to be thinking about a bunch of sparkly junk. When the world sort of stabilized, there was time again for showgirls, and all these casinos had loads of material sitting around."  
  
"Makes sense, I guess. But my first stop would be the local dive," Beatrix grumbled. Aleah perked one of her neatly drawn brows.  
  
"Not surprised in the least. Honestly, I'm just amazed when any of the costumes fit. Seems like even though there was plenty food then, the dancers were all skinny. I have to rig a bunch of stuff."  
  
"Really? I thought they were eating good like you!" the ghoul laughed.

Aleah just shrugged again. She would die before she heard the end of those comments. Her figure was uncommonly plush for the Wasteland-- full breasts, round belly, large ass-- even though she didn't eat more or less than the average New Vegas dweller. But not only had she seen the way hunger in the wastes left bodies emaciated and ravaged, she'd experienced it for a good part of her childhood living in the wind with her mother (whose genes she had to thank for her figure), after her father passed. It wasn't until her mother settled with some big shot that they had regular meals and Aleah's body filled out like it was meant to. The big shot took notice of it too, forcing Aleah to live with a friend of her mother's in Freeside to avoid his glances before they evolved into anything more.  
  
The friend she lived with passed of some unknown illness, and eventually Aleah found work as a maid at the Tops. One day Benny noticed her while she'd cleaned his suite and told her he had the perfect job for her-- right before trying to get her into that very bed she’d fixed for him of course. Apparently her body stood out enough to most men that they wouldn't leave her alone-- really men in the Wasteland didn't leave any woman alone-- so she decided to make the most out of it by performing. She had taken a couple dance lessons as a kid so she had experience, it was a gig her curves guaranteed and at the Aces Theater, there were the Chairmen for security at least. If she was going to be looked at then she was going to be paid for it-- not that she was paid much more than pittance after the cost of food, room and board. Truth be told, the most glamorous thing about her job and life were the old costumes, and that's because no one wanted them. But they were priceless to Aleah and she needed to take small pleasures where she could find them.

Moments passed before the ghoul’s drawl took on a more appropriate and serious tone. “How’s yer mother?” Beatrix asked. “If you can call her that, I mean.”

“She’s barely breathing,” Aleah answered solemnly.

“And the Big Shot?”

“He wouldn’t even look my way, didn’t pay back any of the caps I spent on the trip, even though he could afford it ten times over,” she said.

“Howd’ya feel?” Beatrix asked. Aleah finished applying her mascara until she was satisfied with the product, and eventually she answered.

“I don’t know. I have a lot to be mad at, but I just can’t feel it, especially with the way she looks,” Aleah said, fiddling with the wand. Sadness washed over her eyes like a wave, but the rest of her face kept neutral. “How can I be mad at a dying person? Someone dying must constantly be thinking about all the ways they fucked up. I tried to be the bigger person. I thanked her for giving me a life at least, even if it was kind of fucked, and you know what she told me? She said there was nothing to thank her for, and that she never wanted me. But get this—it wasn’t because of me. It was because she didn’t think she was good enough to be a mother, ‘especially to a child like me.’”

“Well _shit,”_ Beatrix huffed. “Christ.”

“Yeah.”

“Well did you get your unnaturally good looks from her?” the ghoul asked. “You can thank ‘er for that.” Aleah gave her a sparkling, toothy smile. She appreciated the way Beatrix always knew how and when to lighten the mood.

 “Of course. But everyone knows you’re the unnaturally good looking one,” Aleah shot back.

“Yeah, you wish you could look this good,” Beatrix responded. “Maybe if you did, you could hook a job with me at the Atomic Wrangler.”

"On in ten, Sparkle Tits," Guy, one of the many Chairmen, burst in and informed her, rousing them from their banter. Aleah hated the nickname but he knew she did, and he didn't care, so she didn't waste her breath anymore. "They're gonna want to look at you after that ghoul's ugly mug."

Aleah gave him a death glare before looking apologetically at Beatrix, who, to her surprise, just laughed. He felt uncomfortable enough to save face. “What? I’m talkin’ about Hadrian!”

"Got it," was all Aleah said, and he made his exit. "I really wish they'd knock."


	2. The Fox and the Round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vulpes "meets" Aleah for the first time and it's lust at first sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided I would update this quicker than planned, in hopes of gleaning more feedback. And also being too excited to wait. I have also made it so for this work that the Legion does not look kindly upon ghouls.
> 
> Kudos are sweet but comments are encouraged (only if you really have thoughts about the work).

  **Vegas, June 3rd, evening**

 

“Mr. Fox” sat in his chair, making a mental note of everyone in the audience in front of him. Being surrounded by so many profligates, and pawns of the NCR in particular, did little to help his serious nature— but if he was going to be waiting in the Tops for the Courier without blowing his cover, then he couldn't be a common loiterer. Playing the part meant mimicking the indulgent behavior of those who inhabited the Strip. Even still, he watered down his drinks and the few games he engaged were played as strategically as possible, quitting whenever he won.

One other thing Vulpes Inculta— that was the name Mr. Fox went by when he wasn’t undercover as a citizen of the New California Republic and was openly, proudly a vital organ within Caesar’s Legion— must feign interest in to maintain his cover, was that of the profligate women, though he only intended to focus on one in particular: a “dancer” that he heard about.

One of the few things he did find interesting in New Vegas was the relationship profligates had with women. Wastelanders liked to pretend they were superior in their values and treatment of the so-called fairer sex, but they ultimately ended up exploiting them for emotional labor and sexual entertainment just the same. Naturally that exploitation sat well with him; it was the pretense the men kept up that irked him… and often the women of the Mojave themselves.

While he had experience with the bodies of women like any legionary eventually gained, of late it was rare that Vulpes partook in activities involving them, let alone sought after anyone in particular. Women in the Mojave seemed like bitter, weathered carbon copies of one another and the women everywhere else, so they bored him. The scrawny slaves that were piled into Legion settlements were broken long before they ever got to him and seldom could he rouse any emotion from them; he was not one to keep pet rocks.

Vulpes aspired to something living and vivacious and interesting enough that he could break on his own should he choose, but that search was a tedious one and would always come second to his duty as leader of the elite Frumentarii. Sitting in a room with a few dozen patrons and watching a stripper wouldn't have been his first choice to temporarily sate his needs, although on occasion he got off on the hollow look in the eyes he locked with at the Gomorrah. He was there for the job with intelligence that a certain figure important to his mission would be present. At the very least, this time he could cross seeing "the best tits in the Wasteland" off his pretending-to-be-profligate bucket list, even though he suspected them to be exaggerated.

So Mr. Fox found himself in the audience awaiting the performance of “Aleah the Eight”, the woman named for her figure. In the lobby of the hotel before, as he let one of the flamboyantly dressed and conked drones confiscate all his weapons but his switchblade, he overheard a gambler go on about the show.

“Y’just don’t see tits like hers often in the Wasteland, man. They gotta mind of their own!” the man shouted. He and his friend sauntered off, but Mr. Fox inquired further with the guard, curiosity piqued.

“Who were they speaking of?” he had asked, trying not to sound too interested.

“They’re goin’ on about Aleah the Eight,” he’d confirmed, chewing on an old toothpick. “And she is busty.”

As Vulpes sat in the crowd, he could see the heads of the men he overheard chatting, earlier in the day. The crowd itself was composed almost entirely of men, with a few women sprinkled here and there, probably dragged along by their boyfriends so they could become jealous enough to make more of an effort, but some were quite glamorous.

While his body did respond naturally to the revealing dress of the women there, he still could go without the rest of the debauchery of New Vegas—and he could _definitely_ go without watching a ghoul make a fool out of others on stage and live to do it again every Saturday night. He had acquired a personal distaste for their kind that was spreading among the Frumentarii and the rest of the Legion quickly. A couple of other acts came and went, none memorable even though Vulpes remembered everything. Time would tell if Aleah the Eight was worth the caps, not that he was hurting—but he certainly wasn’t used to paying money to see what a Legion man is entitled to. It occurred to him as odd but he must be open to experimentation and improvisation in his line of work.

The lights dimmed and the host announced the woman that he’d been anticipating. The red, yellow and green lit Aces sign over the curtains flickered, further illuminated in the darkness. The speakers began blaring a sultry, vintage horn, and the velvety voice of a woman from centuries past began to envelope the room like a cherry bomb.

_Stars shinin’ bright above you…_

A pointed foot in a heel poked from behind the curtain, twisting to the beat. The curtain was pulled back slowly to reveal a soft-looking brown leg covered in fishnets, and the curtain stopped short just before the hip, and that was all it took to set the crowd off.

_Night breezes seem to whisper “I love you…”_

A gloved hand peeked from behind the curtain now, reaching down to touch the ankle and gliding its fingertips up lightly against the leg. Mr. Fox found himself leaning forward, eyes intent on the stage.

_Birds singin’ in the sycamore trees…_

The foot tapped to the time of the beat as the hand twisted about seductively in the air, snapping. More raucous jeering emanated from the crowd, but Mr. Fox sat silently, his attention affixed to the plump limbs of the figure who hadn’t even revealed herself to the audience yet.

_Dream a little dream of me!  
_

The curtain whipped back to finally reveal Aleah the Eight, clad in a thick feather boa and a glittering blue gown with slits that hugged one of the most pleasantly plump and curvaceous figures Mr. Fox had seen in years, possibly ever. She smiled and he had not expected it to steal his breath, but he felt the air leave his chest and something else stir in a part of his body much, much lower than that.

He sat on the edge of his seat, watching her sway her hips in time and roll her shoulders wantonly. The crowd roared when she turned her back to them, whirling her head back to look coquettishly over her shoulder and wink, while the feather boa inched lower and lower, down her back to the beat. It fell to the floor and the music was nearly drowned out by wolf whistles and other brash noises of male approval. Aleah made eye contact with him for a mere second and despite the annoying displays of animalistic behavior, Mr. Fox found himself completely engulfed by her performance. The noise of the pack drowned out and even the music itself seemed distant. It was as if Aleah performed only for him.

She turned to look over her other shoulder as the most lovely, naughty grin graced her features, and she swung her hips left and right and poked her ass out, shaking it slowly from side to side. Instantly, Mr. Fox grew hard and he found himself wishing that he could reveal his true form and take her there on the stage, bent over just like she was, for everyone to see. Ultimately he had a mission, so he must practice restraint, but the vision playing out in his mind’s eye was almost as overwhelming as the sight before him.

When he finally reeled his mind back in and could pay attention again, Aleah was facing the audience, one silky glove already lying atop an audience member’s head and the other being salaciously peeled from her delicate hands. She swung it about and sent it flying into the audience to a similar fate. Her hands then ran over her breasts and slid down, down, down until they hovered over her crotch. She kept the audience on edge, inviting their cheers before she tore the dress away, revealing a strappy, panty-like covering and a glimmering, encrusted bra.

The crowd went wild, and Mr. Fox, entranced as he was, still had the faculties to marvel at how a woman like her thrived in the Mojave, but she was a profligate and eating well was standard in New Vegas at least, if not the rest of the Mojave. Her body was a stark contrast to any slave he’d ever seen or touched; they were all angles and despair but her… she was life embodied, like a ripe fruit. It wasn’t long before his trousers would hug the product of his impure appreciation for the roundness of her tummy. He wondered how soft she would feel under him in his bed, gyrating her hips while lying on her back instead.

On the right side of the theater he could make out a familiar male silhouette jarring his attention as it headed for the exit—Courier Six. When Aleah finally revealed her large, brown breasts covered immodestly with blue pasties to the crowd and shimmied at the climax of the music, Mr. Fox resolved that he would know for himself one day just how soft she was, and one day soon.

But for now, he had a job to do—so he left as well.


	3. Fading Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aleah gets some bad news and meets Vulpes Inculta who, as usual, leaves quite an impression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back with yet another chapter of garbage! Chime in if ya want. As far as character development, I think Vulpes would have incredible self-control... and I'm really interested in a spark that eventually becomes an obsession, slowly unraveling that control, hence this whole story I guess. It could feel out of character, but ultimately no real person is a machine that can resist everything, and I write what I want lmao.

**Vegas, June 10th, morning**

 

A week or so later:

Benny was dead, they were sure of it. They also knew who killed him. What they, the workers at the Tops, didn’t know was why. Sure, Benny was a two-bit gangster type and had made enemies, Aleah figured, but… what? Of course somebody would do him in. She guessed it was silly to wonder why the Courier or anyone else would want to off Benny, since the reasons were likely infinite. It’d be easier to wonder why wouldn’t someone want him out of the picture.

One reason, for instance, was caps. Benny promised Aleah a great sum of them some months before in exchange for a private performance for a few Great Khan fellas he hoped to impress enough to close a deal. She hoped to use that money to visit her ailing mother, but since Benny conveniently avoided her like she had the plague after sealing the deal, and his right-hand man Swank was no help in getting her a meeting, Aleah had to beg Tommy Torini for a caps advance with interest up the ass to pay for a caravan and make the trip across Nevada and back. When she could finally corner Benny, he came up with some excuse of still working on it, and reminded her that she should be more appreciative of him.

“You might have some nice charlies, but remember you work here because of me,” he’d said. She had nothing to say in response and nothing else to back her word up even if she did. Aleah felt like a chump for having trusted the snake, and knew that now he was gone, she would never get her hands on those caps.

Swank took control of things and Torini liked the idea of taking Swank's old place, aside from overseeing the Aces. And now to make things even better, Swank, Torini and the Chairmen held a meeting with the talent to inform them that due to recent events having caused an increase in the need for reliable security, the room and board of the performers was hiking up twenty percent to “cover the costs,” effectively removing the employee discount and adding a tax—and they weren’t permitted to work at the Tops or Aces Theater and live elsewhere. The job came with the condition that they give the establishment their business first. If Aleah could afford to live in Vegas without a discount, she wouldn’t be working in the first place.

The meeting left her sitting in her chair with her head in her hands.

“Don’t worry about it. You can board with me if you can’t afford to stay alone, Sparkle Tits. I’m sure we’d have a ring-a-ding time,” Guy informed her on his way out. Even in a modest, wrinkled pre-war spring day dress, he gave her shit.

“Please, Guy. Not today,” she sighed. She departed from the room, her spirit as defeated as the Mojave was dry.

Now in the mood for something wet, shortly thereafter, she found herself seated at the bar just outside the Aces, swirling a Sunset Vodka-parilla sullenly. Aleah rarely depended on the drink, but this had just been one of those days where irresponsible decisions seemed the only ones capable of comforting a girl. She was in her own little carbonated, 80 proof world when the tender that had been wiping down the bar slapped the towel onto his shoulder and pushed both hands against the counter, pointing to her drink with his chin.

“Fella at the end of the bar says to top you up.”

Aleah felt her ears go hot when she looked to her left and met the intense, storm grey stare of a handsome stranger. He was pale-ish, maybe six feet tall and dressed in a stylish but modest gambler’s suit and a hat that obscured his hair, but his brows were dark like his expression. His eyes shimmered and she sat up straight as if by command, then eyed him curiously. She could make out the ghostly hint of a smile on him, yet somehow his face remained subtle and unchanged.

The atmosphere between them felt heavy and charged with molecules that snapped invisibly, and Aleah did not know it but she held her breath. Maintaining his cool, yet equally smoldering gaze, he walked in her direction and chills pulsed through her. Her body felt electric, and it felt like a decade passed before he was finally within reach and Aleah luridly pictured him seizing her in an ardent embrace, crashing his lips against hers and imagined that even if she couldn’t breathe, he wouldn’t stop. But he actually didn’t stop… walking at least. He walked right past her, silent and forward facing and the dancer felt like a hologram as she turned on her chair to follow him with her eyes. Fantasy shattered, she was a lone tumbleweed, blown away by the cool scentless breeze in his wake. He left the room and didn’t look back.

About ten seconds passed as she waited for his return. Nothing. Aleah released her breath. The bartender finally got around to filling her glass and Aleah downed it like she had never been thirstier.

**

Performing on a day like today, with the news she heard, was not Aleah’s first idea, but she had a job to do and the caps to pay Torini back wouldn’t make themselves. But Aleah remembered that at this rate, and with the interest, it might be a months before she could even think to get a handle on that money—if she skipped two meals a day. Hell, maybe then she’d shed some pounds and people would stop bothering her about how much they thought she ate. Except Aleah loved her body and didn’t want to change—and also her body was her namesake. So… she was back to square one. She pushed the thoughts away and busied herself with the ritual of makeup and the thoughts of a handsome stranger.

Once she felt dazzling and stage ready, she donned her costume and set off for the lights.

**  
  
 **Vegas, June 10th, evening**

Men of the Legion were known for their incredible self-discipline and earnestness, and Vulpes Inculta was no exception. Men in general, especially those of strict moral codes, tend to find ways to make the things they believe people shouldn’t do somehow fit their agendas; again, Vulpes Inculta was no exception. If someone had told him just over a week ago that he would be searching for a reason to watch a dissolute woman of Vegas strip for entertainment, he would have laughed and figuratively spat in their direction. Now, he was a little bit more open to the spoils to be had… Actually, just a specific one. He was committed enough to Legion ideals to strive endlessly to be better but realistic enough to understand that perfection was a gift Jupiter simply did not bestow on mortals, so the Frumentarius resolved to take advantage of this particular fruit before the Legion purged the Mojave and punished the profligacy once and for all.

Thus Mr. Fox found himself in the crowd again for Aleah the Eight’s show at the Aces Theater this weekend, this time seeing a couple familiar faces. Some of the same NCR officers came back again this week too, whittling away their allowances on liquid courage before the show. He speculated about how inebriated they would become, and how easy it would be to gut one or two in the alley and slink off, but regrettably that would draw too much attention.

Since Mr. Fox had already delivered the Mark of Caesar to the Courier, he actually didn’t have any duties truly pertinent to Vegas, but he convinced Caesar that there was valuable information to be gleaned from eavesdropping on all the NCR officers stumbling about, and that he should still track the Courier’s moves in the area in case the mysterious man was dishonest after pledging his loyalty. Seeing Aleah again at the bar earlier in the day had been an electrifying perk but not without a catch: he actually did have to work. He enjoyed espionage, probably more than the average legionary hence his title, but forcing the vast amount of noise he took in to be valuable information was a task.

So far, all he learned was some petty drama happening in the NCR’s lower ranks. Just as soon as he thought he might gouge his eyes out from boredom and irritation at the whining, the crowd hushed and the lights dimmed. Mr. Fox turned his attention to the stage.

This time, Aleah presented herself on stage in a gold and black beaded dress, and more of the fishnets that he liked. Her hair was coiffed with tight curls and sequined headband with a large ostrich feather that held the hair to her head. An upbeat jazz number played, and she shuffled athletically about the stage, kicking her legs out forward, then backward, and then tapping a bit, her arms flailing and fingers wide.

It wasn’t a sultry display but he found himself enjoying watching her still, if not for her talent alone; she was a talented dancer and seemed to have fun on the stage. Still, Mr. Fox was mildly disappointed that she hadn’t revealed her body and deflated some inside. Just as soon as he made “peace” with it, she ran off the stage abruptly and for a few seconds the music played while everyone just sat there. The audience began to stir with confusion when suddenly Aleah the Eight slid onto the stage in only a fringe bra and a black fringe thong.

The crowd screamed and Mr. Fox found himself a lot more interested than he had been in the moment before, especially since now all of Aleah’s jiggly bits were on display when she tapped and shimmied about. He felt an exhilarating mixture of excitement and an uncharacteristic surge of jealousy at the thought of all the men dribbling over the sight of her and struggled to quash it for the remainder of the performance. She turned around and shook her ass, and he was instantly hard again. In her grand finale, she revealed her breasts to the crowd and this time, there were tassels on the pasties. She hopped about, expertly twirling the tassels on her breasts in tandem and the music finished with a bang.

Aleah gave one last statuesque post, a curtsy-bow with her breasts dangling obscenely as she did so, and the crowd wouldn’t calm until well after she sauntered assuredly off the stage.

This time, Mr. Fox would wait for her outside the theater.


	4. A, E, I Owe You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, A, E, I Own You  
> Aleah and Vulpes have a more... formal meeting, but only just slightly so.

**Vegas, June 10th, dusk**

 

She had hoped to avoid him, but just as Aleah headed out with her bag from backstage, she walked right into Tommy Torini and the rest of his select goons hanging in the theater. She continued on a beeline to the exit, thinking maybe, just maybe, he'd be too preoccupied counting the caps he made off her show tonight to catch her slipping by.

"Where are my caps, girl?" He demanded. Aleah froze in her tracks.

"I, uh... I'm working on it, Mr. Torini," she told him.

"I don't know how much I believe that, you look fairly relaxed to me," he answered. She gulped, and suddenly the grime of the theater felt overwhelming. She never realized how dingy the curtains were, or how many stains danced along the floor. The theater was a reverent place for her but only in the dark evidently. With the house lights up, it was just another grimy relic in the wastes.

"Please, sir, I'm trying. I just..." Aleah trailed off, her eyes affixed to a stain shaped like a banana yucca fruit. "With this new raise in rent, I'm just--"

"Are you complaining? You performers all have the nerve to complain when you borrow money and have never once been able to sell out a show!"

"No, sir! I'm trying to adjust--"

"Tell you what," Torini began, finishing the last of his count. "How's about I take eighty percent of your cut from tonight as a start."

Aleah's eyes bugged before she got them under control, then she looked down, said nothing. She didn't know how she would eat the rest of the week.

"Since you were going to use these to pay me back, anyway right?" he prompted.

"Right."

"Good. It's a start. By the way, how's your mother doing?" he asked.

"Poorly, sir," she said.

"Good to hear," he rattled off, obviously not listening. "Hey kid, I'm kinda busy here."

The dancer found it interesting that he could afford enough attention to demand his money, but there wasn’t enough left to pretend to have the slightest bit of tact dealing with the lives of his employees. But instead of slapping the eye patch clean off his face and sending his teeth flying like she so vividly pictured, Aleah took the handful of caps he allowed her and left without another word.

**

Mr. Fox stood just outside the door to the theater on the side, listening carefully. As the downtrodden footsteps of the performer approached, he perked up. She continued past him without taking notice so he followed her for a minute and finally reached out to her, grabbing her hand.

"Aleah the Eight," he said just as she snatched her hand away from him, offended.

"Hands off, bud," she warned. Then the man, who Aleah just now recognized as the one from the bar before her performance, smiled and stepped closer to her but did not reach out for her again. Maybe the Chairmen around were worth those caps for the fear they put in others alone, she mused. Disillusioned by her recently appropriated payment, the attention of the attractive stranger wasn’t exactly welcome at the moment.

"You are quite a performer," the man began. So he stuck around, she thought.

"Thanks," Aleah responded warily. "And you are...?"

"Mr. Fox."

"Just Mr. Fox?"

"Yes," he responded with a charming smile. Aleah’s heart fluttered even though her negative mood still tugged. Up close his clothing was still nondescript and he was quite handsome when he smiled, though something in his eyes set Aleah on edge subconsciously. Truth be told it was something in most men that did that… but it felt more intense with him.

"Well, thanks for the drink and thanks for coming. I really ought to be going, though," Aleah said, already starting.

"What is it like for you, being up there?" he asked, keeping her there. No man that was a stranger had ever cared enough to ask her that question before; she had to stop.

"Well, it's... glorious honestly," she confessed.

"Do you enjoy having hundreds of eyes on you? Taking you in?" Mr. Fox asked in an innocent tone. She should have known where this was going. He was like the rest and she was not in the mood. Shaking her head she turned away, poised to leave. "I do not mean to be improper, but I have never seen anything like that before."

"What do you want?" Aleah asked tersely.

"You, giving a private performance in my room tonight."

So much for not being improper. Aleah clutched her bag closer to her body, mostly in case she had to run, but also to keep herself from launching it at his head.

"Not happening, Mister," she declared. The image of Benny and his stupid suit flashed across her memory. "No private performances and no rooms."

"It would be well worth your while," he said, his eyes trailing over her body in a way that gave her the not-so-fun chills but also the kind he sent through her when they first locked eyes, the kind that settled in her loins. Aleah shook the feeling off then shook her head firmly, saying "hell no" and finally walked off. He followed.

"My apologies for assuming you liked being watched by male strangers," Mr. Fox said, laughter in his tone. Now pissed, Aleah whipped back around.

“One—screw you!” the dancer hissed, jabbing a finger in his face; he didn’t flinch one bit, just stared back contentedly. "Two—not everyone who performs for men actually likes you all!"

"Are you a degenerate?" he sneered, clearly repulsed. Finally, a reaction… but for the wrong reasons.

"What?" she asked, angry and offended as well.

"Do you prefer the company of women?" Mr. Fox clarified.

"I know what it means! And in general, yes. In bed? No!" Aleah exclaimed. That was mostly true at least, but it was none of his business. And degenerates? Who did this jerk think he was? She could name three lesbians better than this guy. Well, maybe only two. "But still, my point stands. And three— just because I do like men doesn't mean I'm doing it for every single one of you!"

"But you do like the attention," he said, cocking his head to the side.

“Jeez, sometimes!” she griped, arms flying up in exasperation.

“It wasn't a question.”

"Whether I do or not, it doesn’t mean I want anything specifically from you, Mister," she explained.

"Mr. Fox."

"What?" Aleah was frustrated.

"You said 'mister.' It's 'Mr. Fox'," he clarified again, shooting her a charming smile. She nodded and in return shot him in the heart with a smile that was breathtakingly gorgeous and about as kind as a cazador guarding its nest. She enunciated each syllable.

"Fuck off."

This time, Aleah stomped out without looking back.

Vulpes stared after her, still smiling, although it didn't reach his eyes; they were dark. While he found it difficult to submit enough to proposition a profligate woman and even harder to allow one to speak to him the way she did, he knew he must keep his composure. His cover was most important here since his intentions should have been related to his work, and this was a very personal side task. But no Legion man was accustomed to actually having to speak with a woman to bed her. Even though he was no longer impressed by most of them, he still was used to taking slaves at will. The Frumentarii were bred to adapt however, and this chase was as frustrating as it was thrilling if he was being honest with himself. Few women, slave or profligate, intrigued Vulpes. But this one really did.

Maybe it was her body. Maybe it was something about the way she lit up the stage and, even though she was clearly attracted to him, suddenly wouldn’t give him the time of day. Maybe it was the fact that now he knew something about her he could exploit, and it felt comforting and familiar to him having something to dangle over the heads of others. Whatever it was, the only thing that could soothe him was the image that came to him later that night in his suite, the one of Aleah bound to his bed, legs spread eagle with her ankles tied to the headboard by the insides of her wrists, mouth gagged to keep the dancer from protesting but whimpers still leaking out, and the twinkling of tears in her pretty brown eyes for good measure as they leaked as well. Maybe it didn’t soothe him, actually. It seemed to make things worse. But Vulpes would fuck her just like that when he got the chance—and he would get it because he had just the idea to get him the upper hand.

As for tonight, he would just have to content himself with her memory, his thoughts, some slippery agave nectar and his right hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bottlecap for your thoughts?


	5. Old Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aleah meets up with an old friend, and then prepares for a big performance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, vocal feedback is good feedback!

**Freeside, June 10th, dusk**

 

Orris stood outside the gate to the strip, careful not to get too close the Securitrons. He still had not managed to snag a passport yet and wasn’t willing to take any chances. The time had come again for him to escort Aleah to the Atomic Wrangler. Much to the sham bodyguard’s appreciation, Aleah expressed that she could safely travel through the strip to Freeside's north gate under the watchful eyes of the bots, so he'd never have to go any further; he was happy to help her out but getting gunned down by hunks of ancient metal wasn't his idea of a party.

Aleah was friendly enough and even though he was a crook, Orris could actually protect someone when it came down to it, so in exchange for the occasional free ticket to her show which he’d sell to some sucker, he escorted her up the block on nights she visited that ghoul at the Wrangler. One night, a few weeks into their routine and a few shot glasses of liquid courage later, he suggested they take things up a notch and Aleah suggested they get a room. They both had fun but he decided if anything more would come of it, he would let her make the next move. Orris grew uncomfortable with flings because his heart always grew bigger than any other parts of him, so he didn’t run after women anymore.

Tonight Aleah was running late though and his patience was running thin. She surfaced soon enough, clad in in an old duster that camouflaged her generous figure and a worn cowboy hat. Once, when he still felt entitled to looking at her—Orris thought to ask why she covered up a body like that, but really he knew better; he saw what Freeside thugs were capable of. Hell, he ran scams with half of 'em.

"Sorry, got held up," she said, panting lightly.

"I was going to leave, y'know," he lied.

"So you can stand around pretending like you do something around here? Yeah right!"

"I passed on three drunk gamblers I could have escorted, or robbed," Orris complained. She gave him a dazzling smile that melted his crooked heart.

"What's the difference between those, again?" she joked.

"C'mon. Got places to be, kid," he said, herding her along. Crooked as he was, Aleah did feel safe with Orris, even if she wished he would straighten up. That was the reason she didn’t push for anything beyond their nighttime strolls anymore. He was a good lay, but she refused to develop feelings for someone who lived so recklessly. She feared his gimmicks might backfire one day and earn him a one-way trip to somewhere much hotter than the Mojave, and she couldn’t stand to lose another friend.

By the time she reached the Atomic Wrangler, Beatrix was playing rodeo with a client. Too exhausted to wait up, Aleah asked one of the Garrets if she could wait in the ghoul's room. Naturally they obliged only after she agreed to buy something. It was morning when Beatrix returned and Aleah confided in her about the night before. The ghoul decided she could go light on drinks that week to help keep a friend from going hungry, and the hug she got after saying so was so tight, she thought it would take her skin off.

***

**Vegas, June 17th, evening**

 

A week passed.

Like she did every Saturday night, Aleah the Eight sat in her dressing room putting on her face. Beatrix accompanied her earlier but left for Freeside to perform in her own special way.

Frayed, yellowed images of pre-war burlesque stars adorned her vanity in partially broken frames, framed themselves by a myriad of cosmetics. This week was one of those weeks she didn’t look too hard at them: the women were predominantly light skinned and thin, two things she would never be. And she was mostly happy with that, but with the comments people regularly made and the other emotional stressors this week, she didn’t feel all that confident tonight, and gazing upon the magnificent ghosts that haunted her profession was no help recently.

Aleah examined her curls in the mirror, trying not to think about what they would look like the coming week. Normally the dancer could swing enough purified water, agave nectar and mesquite or xander root oil to create a hair moisturizing mixture and regularly maintain her riotous coils, but since her pay was docked, she would be running out fast, and it was the little things like this that ate at her. Aleah envied the women who kept their hair cropped short for convenience in the Wasteland, and burned at the thought of Torini and the standards that he liked to demand but made especially difficult for Aleah to keep.

Still she made due, and the product was ever lovely simply because she was lovely. Tonight her hair would be a pile of tight curls pinned up to lie atop her head and if they came, she would deal with the tangles later somehow.

Aleah elected to be in her dressing gown around the usual time Guy burst in, hoping to avoid being seen off guard and undressed. He came in just as she was struggling to close the garment over her chest, of course. Few things were a perfect fit for her so she splayed her hands over the slit where her cleavage insisted on peeking out, spun around and greeted him coldly.

"Ten minutes, I know." The wannabe bouncer shook his overly gelled head, looking more like one of the Kings than a Chairman. He pulled a cocktail glass outta nowhere, it felt like, and slapped it down on the vanity, nonchalantly watching it slosh over onto some of her cosmetics. The dancer masked her irritation and blotted some of the liquid up with her sleeve. She could smell it was another Sunset Vodkaparilla. Guy was a giant flirt but he was too cheap to ever buy her a drink before…

"Boss asked me to tell you, you gotta be fire tonight, so drink this. And you gotta perform the piece where you go into the crowd to 'Ain't that a Kick in the Head.' There's a special guest in the audience he needs you to impress, no ifs, ands, but plenty of butts!"

And then he was off, leaving Aleah rolling her eyes; Guy was about as clever as he was polite. Curiously, she wondered who the esteemed guest was-- she wished she was given a name and description so she knew who she'd be wrapping her feather boa around but again-- Guy was large bulb, not a bright one.

It was probably an NCR general anyway, they came around enough and heavens knew they liked to tear up the town as much as the cadets, if not worse. Aleah decided she would single out whoever appeared to be the most decorated and go with that.

Once she threw back her drink, and threw on her slinky black sequin gown and her signature white boa, she took off for stage.


	6. New Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vulpes Inculta plays to win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? Fun stories? I will hear them all! I have no one to edit anything but myself, so if you catch any glaring typos or inconsistencies with the story, please chat with me about it!

**Vegas, June 17th, day**

 

Winning was easy, if one actually paid attention... and one was a mastermind in the fields of deduction and calculating probability, which our resident Legionary happened to be among other things. Luck was part of it, Vulpes Inculta was sure, but so was strategy-- and a great part of the strategy at New Vegas casinos was figuring out which games were rigged (many of them) and which ones were actually worth spending time and money on, and varying it up. Having the cunning of a fox helped too.

 Normally, he wouldn't dedicate himself to such a wasteful hobby, but amassing the wild amount of chips at the Tops that day was a means to an end, and it was just the task for his brilliant tactical mind to tackle. He could have stopped at 20,000, but admittedly the task evolved to be fun for him since he understood how to work the system and take advantage of it, much like he sought to do to everything else. Not to mention that in a few weeks, if things kept going the way they did between the Legion and NCR, these caps would be useless and the denarius would take its rightful place. Until then, the experience would help with his cover. The whole idea was a risk, but a calculated one, and the resulting high profile should make his dealings with the Strip’s families go smoother as well.

Thus “Mr. Fox” started with two thousand caps and went 4 hours, took a lunch break to replenish his energy stores and went another 3. Halfway through the day he made a trip to the office to exchange his current chips for the fancy colored ones that signified thousands of caps and soon began to amass even more of those than his pockets could hold, so he rented a small bucket to carry them comfortably. In the late afternoon, he brought the full bucket to the counter with an air of triumph.

 "Um... how would you like your--" Nancy, the girl at the booth for the chips exchange bugged her eyes slightly at the total she calculated, "-- your seventy-thousand chips, mister? M-mr. Fox, I mean!"

 He smiled when she fumbled over her words, trying to address the newly rich man in the most respectful way she knew how. He considered telling her that the most respectful way to address any Legion man would be on her knees naked, but he kept that to himself. He did debate exchanging for Legion Denarius while the rate was in his favor... but it was too risky.

 "In bottlecaps, of course." Mr. Fox smiled smugly, and the woman sunk a bit at the idea of having to move that many caps out of the cash office. She wasn't even sure if they had that many today. What would they do? Write a check? How come no one stopped this guy? No one even recognized him. He was handsome with wild eyes but not anything to write home about, maybe no one noticed he was robbing them blind, Nancy thought.  "I'd also like to rent one of the safes back here to hold my earnings until I am ready to leave."

 "Oh, you're staying?" the girl behind the booth asked incredulously.

 "Absolutely, I planned to spend some of my winnings at your establishment, on the food and entertainment. I hear there's a great show on Saturdays."

 She nodded with enthusiasm. "Oh yes! Tonight, there's the Rad Pack, the Lonesome Drifter, Aleah the Eight, and Hadrian! He's our resident ghoul comedian, chock full of insults!" Mr. Fox bristled, masking his disgust but not able to control the tick under his left eye.

 "Ah, yes. That _thing_. That reminds me, I have a very special request..."

 

***

 

Mr. Fox, a nobody shortly ago, became infamous on the Strip in just a few short hours. So when Swank approached Tommy Torini about Mr. Fox spending his winnings at the Aces Theater after cleaning out the house, the producer fought a scowl and took advantage of the opportunity to make the money back. To the amazement of the staff, he bought all one hundred seats, or so to speak. He also insisted that only one person perform, and the ghoul be nowhere in sight, and that was basically it. The staff was happy to oblige.

 

***

**Vegas, June 17th, evening**

 

At present Vulpes Inculta lounged comfortably in the theater alone, seated somewhere in the middle of all of the available seats. He could choose any seat in the front row, but he wished to be further back so that once the grand Aleah came into the audience, she'd have to travel to him. He could delight as she stepped down from her pedestal and savor each emotion flitting across her pretty face as she walked around tables to get to him. The thought of her pending reaction left his trousers tight.

 Torini was the host and it was obvious through his demeanor that this would be an off-putting experience for more than Aleah. He stepped onto the stage in his best suit.

 "Ah, welcome!" he began. "All of y—uh... Welcome to tonight's show. It's not a long one, but it's a big one if you catch my drift, heheh. I'm positive you'll enjoy it still, you ordered it custom so you had better, ha! What a great crowd, right?"

 Mr. Fox remained quiet and still, his expression dry.

 "Right, well um... let's not wait any longer. I present to you, Aleah the Eight!"

 The speakers squealed out a jolly melody. Mr. Fox looked on as the dancer sultrily glided onto the stage at the cue of her music. She was lovely in her sparkly black gown and confident, obviously blinded by the spotlight; when her eyes adjusted to the sea of empty seats save for Mr. Fox, she froze in her tracks like a deer caught in a Pip-boy light.

  _“How lucky can one guy be? I kissed her and she kissed me!_ _Like a fella once said: ‘Ain't that a kick in the head?’”_

 From his seat it looked like she gulped once, then she smiled nervously and continued after just one beat and her mechanic recovery almost impressed Mr. Fox. He imagined her repeating frantically in her head over and over, "the show must go on! The show must go on!" 

 And so it did, but as Aleah sauntered about the stage and wiggled her hips in time, he could see her composure, her spirit, had and would not fully recover, and when dancers lost their confidence their moves would follow suit. She hopped around, twirling the ends of her boa like she had clearly practiced, but her eyes lacked the sass they typically had and now radiated something else Mr. Fox knew and loved to see in his conquests, combat and venereal alike: fear.

  _“The room was completely black, I hugged her and she hugged back. Like a sailor said quote: ‘Ain't that a hole in a boat?’”_

 Eventually Aleah did a little turn on the balls of her feet, but tripped and landed sloppily. The expression of pain marred her face and she limped slightly, and the blood coursing through Vulpes’ veins felt like it was oil set ablaze. She then shook her head and smiled as if it never happened and Vulpes grinned more wildly than he had in weeks, so wide she could see it from the stage. He had won this round before it was even over and they both knew it.

  _“My head keeps spinnin'. I got to sleep and keep grinnin'. If this is just the beginnin', my life is gonna be beeeeeautiful!”_

 When Aleah made for the steps at the front edge of the stage, she hesitated, likely trying to judge if stairs were a good idea still. The show must go on though, so she descended, sliding her boa left and right against her neck, and paused just at the end of them when she realized she must maneuver between the dozens of tables. The lone spectator relished her deliberation on which route to take, stifled a chuckle as she bumped into a chair he deliberately left in the path and waited patiently for Aleah to stand before him. Mr. Fox got the impression that she recognized him from afar, but up close he could see (and savor) that recognition give way to poorly disguised anxiety.

She swayed in front of him with a grin, but for Aleah, this was all _wrong:_ the stumbling, the self-consciousness, the lack of control. This Fox asshole was toying with her shit in the worst way, and under normal circumstances she wouldn't stand for it. But this scenario was the beginning of a full on blitzkrieg, and she knew she would never hear the end of it from Tommy if she ran off now; she had to roll over and simply take it, and on the stage, of all places. In her life in general, Aleah classified herself as middle of the pack. She was also ready to admit that in the bedroom, she preferred giving up control. But on the stage, it was different: burlesque was supposed to make her feel like the most powerful woman in the Mojave. With simple eye contact and the rolling of her hips, she could keep an audience captivated; now she just felt captive. The man’s gaze commanded her and she couldn’t look away for some reason, even though it was almost physically painful to meet the intensity of his eyes. Her smile faltered as she held the length of her feathery accessory up, swirling it about, and firmly set it around his neck, pulling it and stepping backward as it fell through her fingertips.

 She found great relief in the part of her routine where she returned to the stage and finished the remaining motions robotically. Her mind was far away.

 _“Tell me quick:"_  
  
Off came the gloves, the dress, the brassiere, all done without the finesse Aleah the Eight built her career on. She had been naked plenty of times but had never felt so exposed.

_“Oh, ain't that a kick?”_

 She wanted off that stage something fierce, and she never wanted to feel like this again.

_“Tell me quick, ain't that a kick in the heeead?”_

As she struck her end pose to the grand musical finale, she was jarred back to reality by the pierce of the sole onlooker's clapping resonating through the venue. Aleah had never known anyone to be so smug, and she had _never_ known herself to rush off the stage.


	7. Fox in the Henhouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vulpes pays Aleah a visit after the show.

**Vegas, June 17th, dusk**

 

Christ on a stick, that had been a disaster. Even though she performed to “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” Aleah felt as though she had been kicked in the stomach, and hard.

After the act, she had paced nervously backstage, biting her finger and trying not to scream while she waited for the stagehand to return her garments to her. Tears clouded her vision as she shuffled with a slight limp through the theater wings and made her way to her dressing room, and when she tried to put down her belongings in an anxious fit, she accidentally knocked down half the products lining her vanity to the floor. She sniffled, struggling to piece everything back together, most of all herself.

How could no one have given her a heads up? Why did they let her waltz right into the mouth of dog like that with no warning? And that man, that Fox creep that sent her the drink and then tried to corner her last week, what in the world was his deal? _He_ was the special guest? Why? How did he have the pull to get the entire show to himself? Did he win a goddamned staring contest tournament or something?

Aleah could hear his distinct prickly voice in her memory.

 _What do you want?_ she had asked.

_You, giving a private performance in my room tonight._

Well the bastard certainly got what he wanted somehow. Aleah plopped down into her chair, shoving her face into her hands. This job was beginning to become exhausting.

A knock at her door set her upright. If that was Torini, she had a few choice words for him.

“Just a second!” She searched for her dressing gown. It turned out to be Guy, who, despite actually knocking this time, still didn’t have the manners to wait for her to grant access. She was in the middle of pulling on the robe when his head poked in.

“You have a visitor,” was the bored sounding response. Torini wouldn’t have cared enough to send Guy as a buffer, let alone be considered a "visitor."

“Who is it?” Aleah asked. Guy left without a word. The dancer had the strange feeling she knew already, and finished tying her robe then set to wiping the mascara that had run beneath her eyes.

The door opened and Mr. Fox stepped in, and Aleah felt like he sucked all the air out of the room when he did. Trapped in the imagined vacuum, the dancer endeavored to understand what the fuck was happening around here. First he changed up her show, then ruined it, and now he was in this room that was _hers,_ her sanctuary. She fought to remain neutral, as evidently the man had some sort of pull with her boss, but this was way over the line.

They regarded one another silently, her gaze uneasy and struggling to appear polite. His was appraising almost, but otherwise unreadable. His eyes pointedly settled on her chest then went back to her face. She looked down at herself and resented the busty reminder of how poorly the robe fit and wrenched it shut. Mr. Fox was the first to speak.

“That was some performance you put on.”

“Than—” her voice cracked. Aleah cleared her throat. “Ahem. Thank you.”

Mr. Fox walked over to a rack where various luxurious costume pieces in assorted colors hung. He sifted through them without speaking, curiously examining a garment with beaded trim dangling. Aleah watched him like a hawk and waited, unsure of what to do. She wanted to shoo him away from her things, kick him out and ask a million angry questions at the same time. Luckily for Mr. Fox, good with words as he could be, he was also very comfortable in the silence. He made no move to stop looking through her possessions.

“Can I help you?” she finally inquired.

“Soon,” he replied, taking his time as he made his way to her vanity. He picked up a gold tube of lipstick and inspected it. She couldn’t believe this. He was going to give her some answers, dammit, and _then_ he was going to leave.

“Why were you the only person in the audience?” the dancer probed as courteously as she could manage. He didn’t look up as he answered.

“I bought all of the seats.”

Aleah shook her head in an attempt to process the information. “Um, how the hell did you do that?”

He looked at her matter-of-factly, his blue-grey eyes boring into her.

“With bottlecaps.”

Those seats were fifty caps a pop, and those prices were for people who knew how to bargain.

“All one hundred?”

“There’s actually only eighty-seven,” Mr. Fox informed her, smiling slightly as he put the tube back into place. Aleah’s brows quirked. “Did you know your employer lies about how many seats there are, just so he can regularly shame his employees when they cannot accomplish the impossible task of filling one hundred seats?”

Aleah blinked in disbelief.

“I suppose it is an effective tactic to galvanize his workforce. But I do wonder how interesting it would be if you all did manage to sell one hundred tickets and everyone did attend, finding out their seats were double-sold,” he pondered. “Fortunately, I insisted upon counting the chairs and evidently I was the first to ever do so. I promised to tell no one and promised Mr. Torini another hundred caps if he could arrange for me to see you back here.”

He found ways to will everyone to do his bidding, didn’t he? And Torini, the dirty bastard, had signed off on this… and for just one hundred measly caps? Though her face spoke volumes, the dancer was speechless. Mr. Fox eventually came to stand in front of her; he was only a few inches taller since she still wore her heels. Finally comprehending how little value the performers held at the Tops, Aleah was meek when she spoke.

“But you told me.” Maybe she was “no one” to this man, even though he stalked her, but so help her gods if he said that aloud…

“Do you intend to confront him over it?” he challenged. She debated momentarily and silence was her answer. “I thought as much.”

He was so cold and formal when he spoke, as if chatting about deceiving and manipulating people was just some casual pastime.

“Well, this has all been very illuminating, but I really have someplace to be.” Aleah began backing away from him, but he followed her.

“Visiting that mutated abomination of a friend?” he prompted. Aleah’s eyes narrowed and she ignored his insult toward Beatrix, prioritizing addressing the evidence of further stalking.

“How did you know?”

Mr. Fox’s eyes shimmered and he let out a short nasal exhale that served as his own impersonal form of laughter, as if to say _you should know better by now than to ask that_ , and he was right in that she really did not want to hear the answer. He inched closer.

“I gave you some time to reconsider my terms,” Mr. Fox mentioned coolly. His eyes roved over her curved, plush body and cherubic face just as her brows knitted.

“You already got your private show, mister.” His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly; she straightened up and looked down. “Mr. _Fox.”_

“I wish to experience more,” was his blunt reply. He had seen her show twice before, and now he managed to publicly and privately embarrass her! Cornered and frustrated, Aleah fought the urge to whine.

“What more is there?”

The question was absurd in a way: they both knew the answer.

Mr. Fox held her gaze as seconds passed until Aleah had to look away, then finally brought his hand up to her chin, gripping it firmly, though not as cruelly as she prepared for. He tilted her face toward his as his thumb parted her lips, brushing over them, and her eyes shut while she swallowed down her distress and confusion. His other hand snaked its way around her waist to pull her closer and she resisted the surprising impulse to let her body sink against his.

Her arms came up between them, but she didn’t push Mr. Fox away as quickly as he expected. And obviously she hadn’t meant to, but her arms pushed against the top of her robe as well, exposing more of herself to him as her breasts bulged along her forearms. He could feel the nervous flutter of Aleah’s breath beat against his hand, and a squeeze of her chin encouraged her to open her eyes again. They were large, Nuka-cola brown pools of apprehension and something else that looked a lot to him like desire. He could not say which prospect excited him more. Finally Aleah pushed against his chest.

“I think it’s time for you to leave, Mr. Fox,” she pressed. Without releasing her chin, he leaned into her, grazing his own lips against her cheek and pushing the curls at her temple aside. A violent, involuntary shudder coursed through Aleah.

“Why do you think I would ever do that?” he whispered directly into her ear.

“I don’t want this.”

The man used his weight to guide them both two steps back, pushing her against the surface attached to her dimly lit vanity, and he leaned her back onto it. He splayed the fingers of his right hand through her scalp and explored her neck with his nose, inhaling her scent while his other hand around her waist grabbed her ass. He marveled at her incredible softness, a direct contrast to his own Legion-hardened self.

She gasped, fought back tears, pushed his chest harder. “Please.”

“How many caps would it take for you to give yourself to me?” Mr. Fox demanded. He offered her money, not because he actually wanted to help or thought she was worth it, but because he liked the idea of her feeling low enough to resort to such a thing and him having the power over her to make her do it.

There was fight in each of her enunciated syllables. “I don’t want or need your money.” Aleah pushed him again. He didn’t budge.

His hand clenched her hair firmly, but he didn’t pull yet. Instead he looked her in the eye at that, testing her. “Are you positive about that?”

Did he know? Had Torini told him about her debt in a desperate attempt to squeeze more caps out of him? She wouldn’t put it past the snake at this rate. Aleah regarded him warily, ignoring the warmth of his knuckles against her scalp. It mirrored the growing warmth in the pit of her belly: his possessive touch felt right, but the circumstances were entirely fucked up and her nether region couldn’t seem to tell the difference. She hated her body right about now.

“Everyone in this city wants more caps,” Mr. Fox continued casually. She tried not to sink visibly with relief; he didn’t know then, she thought.

Out of nowhere, the entrance to her dressing room flew open and Aleah exhaled at the familiar wind of the door blowing over her. With a loud clear of his throat, Guy stepped in and Aleah had never been so happy in her life to see that fool. When she looked to Mr. Fox, who still had yet to release her, he gave her the slightest, knowing smile with his eyes and then let her go.

“Until next we meet, Aleah.”

And then he was gone. Guy looked down the hall after him nonchalantly. When Aleah spoke, her snarl rivaled a young deathclaw.

“How could you let him ambush me like that?!” she screeched. Guy actually looked scared for one split second at her fierceness, but he remembered the card he had to play.

“Mr. Fox is VIP at the Tops now, so what he wants, he gets. And you? Well you owe the boss man a steep bit of chips, now don’tcha, Sparkle Tits? Be grateful I came in here when I did.”

He left her there alone, and as Aleah considered her options and realized she had none, she thought she might have an ulcer, or at least vomit. The dancer melted into a puddle, dry-heaving for a few moments until she could gather herself to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment if you are trash and enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> Also I took some creative liberties with the layout and seating of the Tops and the Aces for the purposes of this story. Or I didn't research properly, however you wanna look at it. You came here for the smut though, and not for extreme accuracy, right?


	8. A Rock and a Hard Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aleah confronts Torini about his deal with Vulpes and it does little to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's not super long. And I updated the notes in the last chapter to reflect some technical/research stuff that some may have noticed, mainly with the amount of seats in the Aces. I was replaying the game and the venue is much smaller than I remembered, and I kinda get the layout of the Gomorrah and the Tops confused with one another, but honestly it's so minor that if that breaks the story for anyone, I don't mind them moving on. I just threw out a random number and thought "this sounds good." Lol, I do a lot of things that way come to think about it...
> 
> Sidenote: V.I. doesn't feature in this chapter, and I know hearts and loins are deflating as a result but he'll be back, he's a main character.
> 
> Also, if you have any questions about the work, please ask! I'll do my best to answer without spoilers.

**Vegas, June 18th, day  
**

 

“Is he in?”

“No.”

“I need to see him.”

“He’s busy, kid. Scram.”

“He’s just eating breakfast!”

“Sounds like he’s busy then, don’t it?”

“Please. It’s important, and it’ll only take a moment,” Aleah pleaded.

“And I should care because…?”

“I’m… I have had the worst few weeks of my life,” Aleah confessed. That would be true if she didn’t count all of the months she spent generally hungry as a child, and the year she spent getting used to not having a mother that gave a shit. But if adding a little padding to her story would do the trick, then she would do it. “I need to talk to him, and it could be life or death. _Please.”_

Gerry, the well-dressed thug she tried to appeal to, sighed while studying the ceiling for a second in thought, wondering why women always put him in this position one way or another. They needed something and somehow intuitively knew they could appeal to the strings around his heart, and with doe eyes and puckered lips, they yanked his cords hard; some even tried to tie him down (both figuratively and literally)—and he often felt like the titular character of the pre-war book _Gulliver’s Travels_ that his mom, yet another woman who tied him down in a way, used to read to him.

But this girl didn’t want his caps or his protection; she was after something he could reasonably give… and she was a good kid, kept her head down and didn’t think she was too good to speak to him. So Gerry peeked into the dining room where Tommy Torini sat shoving gecko eggs into his face, then he looked back to Aleah who waited expectantly.

“My cousin that came to see you for his birthday loved the show, yanno?” He started; then loudly to Torini, he called “I think I’m gonna go take a leak.”

He mouthed to the dancer, “You never saw me.”

Aleah beamed at the small act of kindness; it truly felt rare these days. Once Gerry was out of sight, she waited exactly thirty seconds then entered the dining area of Torini’s suite.

“Who the hell let you in?” Torini demanded.

“No one was out there,” she lied swiftly. He wiped his face.

“I pay ‘em to stand at the door, not sit on a toilet, goddamn it. What do you want?”

Aleah took a deep breath, gods did she hate confrontation.

“What happened yesterday was absolutely unacceptable,” she began sternly but still trying to maintain a level of respect.

“And how is that?”

“You let a man come to my dressing room!” she cried. Torini’s good eye steeled over and Aleah composed herself, waiting for his response.

“That man won seventy thousand caps here yesterday, you understand?” he started. Aleah choked on her own breath. “ _Seventy thousand._ And he bought out the show. People with caps get whatever the hell they want around here, got it, kid? People who owe ‘em, though?”

Aleah cringed. She knew he would bring it up.

 _“Yeeeaah._ People who owe caps really should be more polite in tone, don’t ya think?” Torini prompted. Aleah studied her shoes quietly. “I’m tired of excuses, girl. I want my caps in full by the end of the month.”

“But Mr. Torini, that’s three weeks from no--,”

“Or. Else.”

 _Or else what, you asshole!_ she wanted to scream. Instead, meekly, “Yes?”

“Or else you’re going to have to do more than show that body of yours to our guests.”

Aleah had never known Tommy Torini to be a pimp, but it seemed like ever since Benny disappeared, every small timer was looking to book the job of biggest crook around, starting with him.

“Now out!”

Aleah left the suite wondering if any of the male performers had ever been told such a thing. She also found herself genuinely debating if she could do it, have sex for money. She heard about the kinds of things that happened to the girls at the Gomorrah, and thinking of them made her heart sink. She knew Beatrix turned tricks but she was tougher than a rusty nail and was always in charge. Aleah would never be able to control the game in a setting like that; the only time she felt powerful was on the stage.

She would die before she let anyone take that power away from her. There had to be another way.

**

“I’m so sorry, bud. I just don’t have ‘em,” Beatrix told her friend, referring to the bottlecaps she sought. Aleah shrugged, numb at this point.

“I had figured as much, but thought I’d try anyway. You seem pretty successful here—” Aleah waved around the dull, square room they sat in at the Atomic Wrangler, “but I know you’re a thirsty one.”

Beatrix shifted uncomfortably.

“I’m not mad, Beatrix. You work hard for your caps, spend ‘em on whatever you want. Not your fault I’m in this mess.”

They sat in silence internally trying to come up with solutions. Beatrix sipped from a bottle of something brown and strong, and Aleah clipped her nails with a rusty tool.

“Have you tried the Big Shot?” Beatrix rasped. A hearty scoff flew out of her companion’s mouth.

“If I’m trying to get caps to Torini so I don’t have to fuck for money, the Big Shot is exactly who I _don’t_ want to ask.”

The ghoul passed her friend the bottle and Aleah took a long swig. The burn was the first thing she felt in hours.

“What about any of the other performers?

“Billy Knight is so desperate for work and outside approval, he’s paid practically dirt so I doubt he has anything to spare,” Aleah began, handing back the bottle. “The Lonesome Drifter and I have barely even spoken because he’s so goddamned lonesome, so it doesn’t feel right asking him. And Hadrian? Hadrian’s an asshole, so that’s a no-go.”

“I thought that was just his gimmick,” Beatrix spoke, fighting off a belch.

“Nope. That’s real.”

There was a long pause as she contemplated further.

“I could ask Bruce Isaac, he seems pretty straight,” Aleah suggested. “Yeah, I’ll do that.


	9. Dead Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aleah looks into a possible lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is super short, and so are the notes. Sorry!

**Vegas, June 19th, day**

 

As it turned out, Bruce Isaac was not straight. In fact, Aleah learned that he was quite crooked. Apparently he stole a great deal of caps from his last employer (and then plowed the man’s daughter), and was also in debt to Torini as well thanks to a Rebound addiction he developed that was only worsening. Bruce told her that because of the high profile job, his paranoia became aggravated after starting at the Aces, so Benny suggested he try Rebound to keep him alert in case his old boss Mr. Bishop showed up in town, and when Bruce couldn’t afford anymore and wanted to give it up, Benny was “sure as shootin’” that Torini would give him an advance to see a doctor.

The doctor helped him to get clean but the paranoia came back twofold because now Bruce owed money to his new employer and suspected the Chairmen might try to eliminate him, so he began using again shortly ago. The only reason he even confided in Aleah was because he thought she could help him get his hands on some more chems, and now not only did she still not have the caps she needed, she found herself genuinely worried for the man’s well-being.

When she came back to Torini later that day, she thought her new knowledge would be helpful. She thought there would be no repercussions when she accused him of taking advantage of his staff in general and especially in their times of need, and suggested he worked with Benny to back her into an economic corner so that she had to ask for help. Aleah naively believed he could be compelled to forget or at least lower their debt based on his illicit involvement, but instead he docked her pay again and shortened the deadline for the end of the month to the end of the week.

As a last resort, Aleah threatened going to Swank to fix the problem.

“Not sure why you think he’d be any better to you than Benny was,” Torini had told her. “But I’ll admit it’s cute that you think he gives a damn about any of you, doll-face.”


	10. Under New Management

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aleah has a plan and Vulpes is one step ahead as usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trash for writing this.

**Vegas, June 27th, day**

 

Aleah had acted impulsively; she understood that now. Just one day remained until the end of her deadline to get the caps to Torini and she still had zip. Even though he had taken a cut of her earnings each show night the last few weeks, interest made the debt climb higher still and now she owed an outstanding twenty-five hundred caps.

In hopes of talking the talent manager into at least giving her the old deadline back, Aleah donned a crimson, curve-hugging velvet dress and some matching lipstick, her loveliest, plushest lashes, and curls that were quite becoming. With hardly any effort, she turned the heads of several gamblers and Chairmen alike when she strode into the Tops lobby from the elevator, floating by confidently and swaying her hips.

Just as she approached the outside of the Aces Theater, she could see Torini within near the bar laughing and clapping his hand enthusiastically against the back of a familiar, well-dressed silhouette. When the silhouette turned around and beheld her, Aleah’s heart fell straight through her chest and into the acid pool of her stomach.

Mr. Fox.

He greeted her with that same knowing, imperceptible smirk, and Aleah… she fought not to stomp or puke on his shoes

“Ally-baby!” Torini greeted her with uncharacteristic kindness. “What’s shakin’? You later tonight, hopefully, haha!”  
With a tight smile, she tugged him several feet away from Mr. Fox out of earshot, as far as she could manage without being rude.

“Hey, what’s the deal?” he asked, straightening his jacket.

“What’s he doing here?” she squawked.

“We were just talking business, baby,” he told her. “You’re ring-a-ding in that shiny red number but you really should let the grownups talk.” She ignored his unintentional condescension.

“Trust me, I’ll be out of your hair right after this but I need to chat with you.” He waited, hands on his hips. She took a breath, squared her shoulders, pushed out her chest, looked at him from under her long lashes and pouted. “Well, I know you said you need your money by tomorrow, but I was really hoping we could stick to the end of the month.”

“No worries, baby, Mr. Fox has got you covered,” Torini happily informed her. Aleah’s jaw hit the floor.

“ _What?”_

“Yeah, I was gonna tell you. He came up to me and paid your debt in full about an hour ago. You should go thank ‘im.”

“No fucking way…” she said to herself in amazement. The night when he cornered her in her dressing room, she suspected he knew about her debt and like a fool, thought nothing of it because he kept it to himself. He toyed with her like it was nothing, like her life was a game. “Why won’t he leave me alone?”

Torini thought she was talking to him, apparently.

“With what he’s worth, you should be excited he’s barkin’ up your tree, toots,” Torini suggested. Aleah swallowed, her throat drier than the Mojave. “Besides, you better get used to him. He’ll be your boss soon, is my guess!”

Aleah’s face was so severe Tommy thought she would give herself a headache.

_“Excuse me?”_

“Yeah, he said something about wanting to take over the place,” Torini said, happy as a pig in shit. There might as well have been money signs in his good eye and on his patch. “He’s got enough caps to make a bid and Swank is looking for a partner now that Benny’s out of the picture. Honestly we could use him. The Ultra Luxe has Marge and Mortimer, Gomorrah’s got Big Sal and Nero. I like just dealing with the talent but we’re gonna need another face around here helping with operations to keep the other families from closing in.”

Aleah covered her mouth with a manicured hand and clutched her stomach with the other, groaning.

“Is she feeling ill?” asked a familiar, vulpine voice.

“Looks like it—I’ll go grab her a glass of water, or a bucket before she yaks,” Tommy said and was off, leaving the two of them alone.

“Have you heard the good news?” Mr. Fox queried.

“You… you’re… you…” she couldn’t get it out.

“Considering _taking over_ the Tops? Absolutely. Maybe even all of the Strip.” The language he used was specific for a reason she couldn’t know at the moment.

Aleah stepped back from him, but he was already one step ahead of her, literally, because he moved forward in unison with her so that she was just as close as she was before. The fact that he knew her every literal move chilled Aleah to the bone. It was like a dark dance, and Mr. Fox was leading.

“I also took care of your debt,” he reminded her. “I suspected Mr. Torini might encourage you to do a different kind of work to produce the caps you owed him, and I simply won’t have other men touching what I intend to have for myself.”

Aleah’s glare was something like a cazador sting, but it rolled off him like he was well equipped with antivenom.

“You wasted your goddamned caps because I don’t belong to anyone, least of all you,” she spat.

“Did you forget the news just that quickly? This casino, along with its employees and the rest of the Strip will be under new control very soon. You will be mine to employ however I wish.”

Feeling cornered, Aleah wished Tommy would return fast but the producer was conveniently nowhere in sight.

“I’ll leave the Tops, then, the Strip too,” Aleah threatened weakly. Not even a naïve Goodsprings farmer would have believed her bluff, let alone him.

“And I will find you,” Mr. Fox promised. “ _Wherever_ you go. Aside from that, I sincerely doubt you would survive the Wasteland outside these walls. You can barely travel through Freeside alone, I hear.”

Gods, he saw her with Orris too? How could he know so much? Was it his job to just stalk people? With a gulp Aleah stepped backward and found herself against a wall opposite the lounge/bar part of the theater. At least there were a few people about that should prevent him from assailing her, although their exchange was hushed enough that no one was the wiser.

“Leave me be, _please._ ” He ignored her eager request, feeling the velvety fabric on her arm.

“I will not. I will have you,” he reminded Aleah.

“Well I don’t want you!” she whispered back frantically.

“That would suffice even were it not a lie. I know you felt something when we first met, and when I visited your dressing quarters that night.”

“Oh, you mean fear?” she sneered, effectively dodging admission about their first encounter. She hadn’t even wanted to admit feeling fear but it was obvious by now and maybe it would encourage him to move onto a more willing object. His short, arrogant laugh set her endings aflame. She hated how every time, in a way, he was right, and that he always seemed to know it. Regardless, she was certainly more terrified of him than anything else.

“Something lower _,_ I think,” the man casually mused. “Right about _here.”_

Aleah felt his hand close around her cunt through her dress and, eyes wide with terror, she tried to step away, but his strict gaze, wicked smile and vice grip held her steady. Her eyes darted across the lounge, hoping anyone would notice and say something, but he worked so subtly, so insidiously, using the drape of her garment to his advantage, that from afar it merely appeared to others in the room who cared to pay attention, like a man and a woman standing close to one another and exchanging words. In New Vegas, that would indeed do the opposite of standing out.

Aleah weighed her options. She could make a scene—they both knew how that would end up: Mr. Fox, the new prospective partner at the Tops, would use honeyed words to spin it to his favor and paint her as a neurotic woman. Instead, she pinched hard him through the sleeve of the arm that held her, and much to her distress, not only did his grin not falter, but he smiled harder.

“Nope, pretty sure that’s also fear right now,” she squeaked.

“And your fear of me excites you because you enjoy having control taken away from you,” was his counter. She prickled at the nerve of this asshole.

“And why the fuck do you think you know that?” Her eyes had a fiery glow to them when she was rife with ire, and Mr. Fox enjoyed it almost as much as he enjoyed her panic.

“Because your kind always do.”

Aleah laughed incredulously, pinching harder. _Wow_ , she thought. He truly was a bold, sexist bastard. “Who, women?”

“No.” He squeezed her cunt tighter. “Submissives.”

Her poor next thought never had a chance. She choked on it once he squeezed, they stared at one another and she was the first to look away. Finally Aleah wrenched herself from his grip, with his silent permission, and scurried off without another word.

Vulpes let her scamper away while he straightened out his suit. How different this had been from their first verbal encounter. And this, _this_ was the way he liked to leave things. He knew he wouldn’t see her again before the Battle at Hoover Dam, but he was content that she had something to think about in his absence. As dedicated to his work as he was, he had particular needs of his own he had to tend to, occasionally. He would be sure to thank his lord for allowing his little dalliance with the Tops and its game pieces; it took a great leader to understand the value in letting his men explore and experiment like Vulpes did. It kept their minds occupied and made them faithful soldiers and spies.

Vulpes would have to find a way to thank Caesar for his generosity one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for chugging through the less naughty chapters. I honestly didn't intend for it to go even this long before there was some real action, but I've actually written some stuff ahead and it turns out this is gonna be slow burn if you haven't guessed. I really thought I wouldn't make it beyond three hefty updates before adding full on smut but hey, I'm pleasantly surprising myself. Comments? Reactions? Requests for spoilers even though this format is probably horribly predictable? Drop 'em below! I'll hear them all...


	11. Former Performer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life in the Mojave goes on with new, positive changes for a certain performer.

**Vegas, Freesidee, June 28th, day  
**

 

A dancer with a lovely visage and boastful figure could easily find gainful employment at a quality, tasteful establishment like the Gomorrah. It is there she might also find her expected duty transform into something much more hands on, and eventually a swift and violent demise by chem overdose or strangulation, recorded on holotape for all the male staff to share among themselves.  In her search for another venue to perform, Aleah shuddered at the thought of working there, then imagined her body lying lifeless on sullied sheets, her tongue sticking out of her mouth cartoonishly, and actually laughed. Not that it was a truly funny concept, but whatever it took to get through the day, right?

The Ultra-Luxe, grand as it was, was also tasteful, a little too tasteful, in a few ways actually. Apparently it wasn't the kind of hotel where entertainers like Aleah were hired— as the snide woman at the bar inside so enthusiastically advised her. The woman turned her pointy nose upward and turned Aleah away with a huff. Aleah couldn't really picture herself jazz dancing to the elegant classical music filtering from the speakers anyway, but she had to work somewhere, barring the current situation.

As she left, she was intercepted by a man in a top hat who called himself Mortimer and mentioned he should like to set up a job interview with her personally, giving her a time slot for that evening. Aleah took down the information with a grain of salt— she knew all too well the predatory glint in his eye and the inclination in his lofty voice. She left with the impression he was hungry for her in that special kind of way when some stranger approached her and gifted her some very helpful knowledge about the Ultra-Luxe and its cogs. Aleah then understood the hunger in his eyes to be quite literal, and resolved to never return to the hotel again.

Lugging her feather-stuffed suitcase in the broad daylight, Aleah stopped in front of the Lucky 38 Casino, finding a lonely carton of cigarettes on the pavement. She didn’t smoke, but she could pawn them off for caps virtually anywhere, so she held them up to examine them when the casino lights drew her attention. She put the pack in the pocket of her casual pants while she took in the tall tower, and the tinny-sounding swanky music and sultry Gomorrah crier chants of the Strip melted away into the back of her mind.

She studied its undulating lines while the lights skated up the side of the building hypnotically, considering what it must be like in there. She mused that if it actually functioned as a business, it would probably be a glorious place to perform. She had ever only heard rumors about the elusive Mr. House, and the most recent one was that he was dead, and Aleah hoped that life on the Strip would remain consistent amid all of the dramatic changes, even if it wouldn't be her home for much longer. If she were being truthful, she would admit the Strip had cast her off like trash, but some of the best years she'd had so far were right there. Fighting a crestfallen feeling, she cruised through Freeside until an idea popped into her head.

Compared to the rest of the Mojave, the Atomic Wrangler might not be the worst place to freelance. Her access to Beatrix would surely double so there was one perk. The Garrets were hardy and hard up for caps, but who wasn't? Maybe she could convince them to add a dancer to their mix and Aleah could bring in some of her regulars as new patronage. It was her last option, other than staying at the Tops and waiting for that sly bastard to buy the place, and that simply wasn't an option. 

Just the idea of him raised the hair on the back of Aleah's neck. And as much as people wish otherwise, the two things (or one) they truly own are still beyond their control: the mind and the body. So when Aleah’s mind went to Mr. Fox, this time she thought of his unwavering confidence, his athletic build, his masculine scent and his grey blue eyes, and said thoughts left her feeling something else uncomfortably familiar. She wondered if she would ever see purified water so blue, and grew thirsty. Her belly furled with fear and begrudging excitement while she reminisced about him nuzzling her neck, whispering in her ear, and the unfurling flared almost painfully after she remembered the way he grabbed her, like she was a ragdoll that belonged to him.

The ego and super-ego came to the rescue to push away the desires of the id, making Aleah ask why the hell her body betrayed her like this. Gods, did it suck being human. It felt like ages since she was with Orris last, and his touch that one night only left her wanting more. Of course she wanted to feel wanted, desired, possessed by an attractive and powerful figure but Mr. Fox overstepped every boundary, circumvented all the proper channels and she had no say in the matter. He was a creep that she was somewhat attracted to, but he terrified her and the threat she felt from him outweighed everything else, that was that.

A rat scampering by and a waif child in pursuit of it brought Aleah back to the world. She caught site of the blonde woman on the corner taunting travelers with hints of what waited for them just up the block at the Wrangler. Corinne, as it turned out her name was, had brought Aleah back to her idea.

The dancer offered the crier a cigarette from the pack she found, figuring it would make no difference at this point. She watched her light up and inhale and waited patiently. Once it was burned down to the filter, Aleah spoke, waving the acrid air away from her.

"How much do you get paid for this?"

"Not enough, probably."

Aleah nodded, knowing the deal. "A room, at least?"

"Yeah. If you can call a crap hole a room, I guess," answered Corinne. "It's discounted and comes out of my pay." 

"Do they expect anything else from you?" Aleah asked pointedly, that was the money question. The blonde woman shook her head. Aleah nodded one last time; it wasn't dancing but it would have to do.

"Say," Aleah began. Corinne raised her eyebrows expectantly. "How would you like to earn the rest of this pack?"

**

James Garrett was tired of Corinne's constant complaints. She wanted some time off, she wanted a better room, she wanted discounted drinks on top of it all. Women always wanted something, he thought. That's why he preferred employees like Fisto. Fisto was quiet and efficient and never, ever complained; he literally couldn’t because it wasn’t in his programming. Fisto on a corner wouldn't bring in the traffic Corinne did, though, and that was exactly why he needed her out there seven days a week. She accused him of running her ragged and reminded him that without a proper break, she wouldn't even be able to bring in a Freeside junkie soon. James was inclined to agree but his hands were tied; there was no one else so she must continue.

Then one sunny day Corinne came into the Wrangler with a feminine friend in tow and all of their problems were solved.

"Here's your new part-time promoter," Corinne urged, and James had never heard such authority in the woman's perky voice. "Now gimme my goddamn vacation."

Aleah had to work seven days straight that first week, while Corinne spent all of her meager savings touring Vault 21, gambling at the Tops and swimming in the fountain at the Ultra Luxe. Aleah also had to share a room with the crier, but they were given a larger one (at a cost they needed to help one another pay). Aleah would have liked to stay with Beatrix, but given that the ghoul often worked in her room, it wasn't the best idea. Corinne was nice enough, didn’t snore so loud and was too bad of a liar to be a thief, so things worked out. 

Aleah grew to like her just as much as her ghoul friend, and the three of them would drink and share stories together often. One of those nights, as Beatrix snored after polishing off a fifth of scotch on her own, a tipsy Aleah and a buzzed Corinne stayed up quietly snickering in the low light of a lamp and took turns doodling in the craters on the ghoul's face with an old marker. Aleah even smeared some of her old lipstick onto the snoozing creature. 

The two “smooth skins” lied on their backs next to each other and after they couldn't possibly giggle any further, Corinne turned onto her side and instinctively snuggled with her newfound best friend. Curiously, the blonde's pale fingers found themselves intertwined with Aleah's brown digits. Aleah felt a surge at the physical connection between them and looked at the blonde with new eyes. Corinne, who'd felt it too, stared back.

Nervous about advancing, Aleah licked her lips. She had never done this before, and wasn't sure if the signals were authentic or, to her extreme embarrassment, imagined. It was Corinne who leaned in and took her lips without any hesitation. They instantly tasted the whiskey on one another and laughed— and Aleah snorted into the kiss like a fool, which made them laugh even harder. Beatrice stirred and their eyes flitted to her, staying still like rabbits until she turned over with an incoherent mumble; satisfied that she was still out, they resumed the fiery kiss. 

Soon Aleah found herself on her back again and Corinne was over her, trailing with her lips over each bit of exposed skin and leaving fire in her wake. Their hands roamed each other's bodies, extracting hisses and moans, and when Corinne dipped her head beneath Aleah's skirt and took her folds into her teeth, Aleah sighed with pleasure.

The dancer was moist already, so Corinne's fingers slid in with ease and out with fluid on them, then back in again, repeatedly. She added another finger and hooked them both upward and probed, something she liked to do for herself, and Aleah's gasp told her she must like it too. Her tongue and fingers worked together like they had practiced this routine many times before, and after a couple minutes of subjection to Corinne's voracious appetite, Aleah released into her mouth with a strangled moan. 

It turned out the Atomic Wrangler crier was good with more than just words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the smut you were expecting, obviously. And just a tiny bit. But smut all the same. Would love to hear your thoughts. I have no one else to proofread or do continuity or fact checking. If you notice something glaring, bring it to me attention, per favore.


	12. Desert Fox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two months or so have passed since our main characters have last seen one another. The Second Battle of Hoover Dam is on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating today, and likely another time this week because this one is short and I probably won't update again until the week after next for personal reasons.

**Mojave, August 28th, dusk  
**

 

Vulpes did not know why fate chose to impart him with such a severe nature, just that he couldn't find it in himself to feel any shame about it. The dying words of raider he stuck a knife into earlier that day were "you sick bastard!" which he found peculiar, coming from a rabid fiend. 

"My father claimed me," Vulpes corrected him, then twisted the knife in his gut with a gleam in his eyes.

 If it wasn't meant for him to deceive, manipulate and attain information he could use to his advantage and the Legion's, why did he have such a proclivity for it?

Thinking about the day just passed and the day ahead, he lied face up on his bedroll in the middle of the desert, hands behind his head, in a modest Legion encampment with the snores of slumbering Legionaries enveloping him. His small unit joined with a larger one as reinforcements for the upcoming battle at the dam, and they’d encountered and easily dispensed with the nearby raiders, setting up camp. The embers of the campfire glowed an ashen red, and a lonely coyote howled in the distance, joined by a few others. The sky was black blue velvet and littered with twinkling stars, but it was the white glow of the moon that reflected in his eyes. With perception tuned to its peak, the sensation of curious eyes on him teemed over Vulpes. He made no move.

"What is it?" he asked quietly, in Latin.

Cassius, a Frumentarius in Vulpes' camp who’d barely begun his career, rustled under his blanket. "Sorry, I know I should not stare."

"And yet you do,” dryly. “What is it?"

"I cannot sleep."

"What stirs you?"

"I... am afraid."

Vulpes sighed lightly. _Morte certa, hora incerta,_ he thought. Legion men were usually prepared to die right when it came down to it; it was the waiting for when that could leave a man mad. He considered some of his own close calls and skirmishes. “High” on adrenaline, he worked efficiently without emotion and survived thanks to his skill and the  _fortuna_ of Mars. In times of repose, before greater conflicts, there was too much time to think. Anticipation could become their enemy’s greatest weapon.

Cassius, though physically imposing with his tall, sinewy frame, was fresh to serious battle as a younger recruit, not that Vulpes was much older. He completed some minor espionage-related tasks and sparred with the best of the best in training, learning to hold his own, but the real test lie ahead and he could feel it. The head of the Frumentarii deliberated. There wasn't much to say that would relieve the young man.

"Fear is good. It keeps you from making foolish decisions. Usually."

"It keeps me from sleeping," the young man quipped sarcastically. Vulpes smiled to himself at his wit.

“You were made for war, Cassius,” his leader promised. It was rare that he spoke to inspire confidence in others, but when he did, it was typically for the men in his unit, whom he cared deeply for. While he doubted most would make it so far, it would serve the Legion well and speak to his skill as not only a spy but also as a teacher and leader if his own men could achieve his level of proficiency. And in training, Cassius distinguished himself; he reminded Vulpes of an unrefined version of himself (a penchant for cruelty, though with more sentiment) and Vulpes began to consider the young man his latest protégé. “In the heat of battle your body will astonish you with its ability to endure. You may find you will never need sleep again.”

“That sounds like a foreshadowing of my death,” Cassius jested, and Vulpes shrugged.

“It very well could be, though it is up to the fates. What I mean to say is sleep of this poor quality is overrrated.”

“Perhaps if I had a bosom for a pillow, I could get some proper rest,” the younger Frumentarius contemplated, yawning out his last words. Although inclined to agree, his commander didn’t respond. Instead, his mind went to Aleah and her own pillowy bosom, and excitement furrowed in his abdomen.

_Stars shinin’ bright above you…_

Shortly after, Vulpes was acutely aware of how unforgiving the ground beneath his bedroll was.

_Night breezes seem to whisper “I love you…”_

The image of her would do him no good at the moment.

_Birds singin’ in the sycamore trees, dream a little dream of me…_

He fought to keep the thoughts of her away and did not speak again the rest of the night.


	13. Monkey Wrench

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is good in the Mojave until it isn't.

**Vegas, August 31st, morning  
**

 

More weeks passed. Life seemed normal, almost good, even. Aleah found some stability: no one hounded, stalked or took advantage of her in Freeside and the thing that developed between she and Corinne, whatever it was, sprouted like a dandelion in the cracks of pre-war rubble, tentative yet equally tenacious. After a month, James and Francine Garret were convinced it would not step on the toes of those at the Tops to add a little bit of burlesque to their rotation, thus the Atomic Wrangler thrived. Add to that the fact that news spread about the Strip that Tommy Torini had turned up missing one day with no evidence as to what happened, his absence encouraging the Garrets even more. So Aleah created a Western themed act with an aged cactus prop and one of the merc guards dressed like a pony that left the patrons excited for a bit of ride-‘em-cowboy, and Beatrix capitalized on the demand, boosting her profits. Morale was high.

The thing about life seeming good in the Mojave Wasteland, though, is that it seldom lasts. Their group was no exception.

It was a Sunday afternoon when, seeking refuge from the oppressive Nevada heat after a few errands, Aleah came in into the Wrangler and found all of the patrons, guards and casino room staff alike huddled around the bar. She stopped in her tracks, thrown off by the silent gathering. Her brows perked.

“What’s going on?” Aleah asked. A rude “ _shh!”_ sprang out from an unknown source and the dancer’s brow furrowed. She could vaguely recognize the voice of Mr. New Vegas on the radio, but the words of the broadcast were too distorted to be audible from where she stood. Corinne, seated on a barstool, turned at the sound of her voice and waved her over. The look on her face made Aleah’s stomach turn. When they embraced, Corinne’s grip felt more urgent than usual, and the fact the she didn’t let go left Aleah’s heart rate terribly aflutter. “What is it?”

The blonde just shook her head, more out of denial of the circumstance than denial of an answer. No one else responded. Aleah looked at the box the voice came from, wishing it were louder, but after a minute to adjust and listen, she discovered that the Battle of Hoover Dam was over… and the Legion triumphed with the help of Courier Six. The New California Republic was retreating fast and the death tolls from either side were a number that made Aleah dizzy. She clutched Corinne like an anchor while a storm raged in her heart.

 _“KKRRR— Once again, this is Mr. New KKRRR—gas, and while I don’t know the fate of this great state or radio KSSHtion due to the recent developments, I do want to say that it has been a real honor serving you all, and—”_ the voice cracked and there was a pause with uneven breathing. Then some static that sounded a lot like someone sniffling. _“And never forget, each and every one KSSH—you is wonderful in your own special way.”_

Instrumental music spurted from the radio, ending the transmission. No one spoke a word and no one knew what to do. What _could_ anyone do? Aleah felt like she was at a wake for all of New Vegas, mourning life as they knew it. Shock permeated the room. The news had been a nuclear cloud, sticking to their DNA and mutating them into silent, helpless fools.

Francine, whose head had been down between her elbows with her hands laced on the back of her neck, exhaled and shifted behind the bar. She turned around and returned with two bottles of whiskey the size of Aleah’s head and poured several shots, pushing the glasses forward silently. James followed her lead, pulling down all the bottles of hard liquor he could fit in his arms, and began pouring shots as well. Aleah and Corinne handed them off silently to the patrons, before tossing two back together; the burn of the hard liquor in her chest felt strange to Aleah. Her heart rate felt irregular too, and her breathing. Everything did; her chest was too tight.

“They lost… Those goddamn fools lost… How the fuck did we get here?” Beatrix snarled. Aleah just realized her friend was there; it was odd to see such rage twisting the ghoul’s features. She had never been one to snap, things just rolled off of her normally, but nothing was normal about this. Beatrix’s vision was red because only recently did she put her trust in the government, for the first time in her life, and they failed. And in the end the man she trusted to her find employment at the Wrangler under the guise of a friend sided with the faction that didn’t see her as a human being. “That Courier bastard! How could he do this? What the _fuck_ was the NCR doing?”

Of course not a soul in the building had the answers she sought, but they all probably wondered their own versions of the same thought. Aleah wanted to think, how did we get here? But it made sense in a way or two. If one brainwashed enough people and destroyed their identities, as Caesar had, anything was possible. 

“My sister was out there,” one of the women who worked at the tables began. Beatrix grimaced sheepishly, realizing she had just insulted any number of people alive and dead, not that it changed the foolishness in her point of view. “I told her she was a fool for joining the fight. Now’s she probably dead… or worse.” Her eyes began to water and she released an abrupt sob that wracked violently through the room; she paused only to decline the shot offered by Aleah, then she ran off in the direction of the nearest toilet. There was more silence for a couple minutes, discounting the retching noises from the room next door.

"If any of youse planned on skipping town, now would be the time to do it," Francine muttered grimly. The crowd looked like a sea of gloomy masks floating aimlessly and then sparkling to life. The thought of running hadn't occurred to Aleah, or any of them based on the startled awake expressions changing around her. But that made sense too, to a degree. If they stayed, half of them faced slavery and the other half certain death. But how far did one have to go to escape the Legion? It had already spread like a bacterial infection rotting the limbs of the southwest; who knew where it would move next. One thing was definite: the Strip was valuable and vulnerable territory, so they had days, maybe hours before soldiers would flood it and take over Freeside in the process.

Aleah let out a brief, albeit genuine laugh at the thought of the Tops and its wealthy new owner. She hadn't stuck around to wait for him to buy the casino, but the image of what Mr. Fox's face must be right now, after having spent all those caps only for a month of having his cake and now not being able to eat it, lit her up. She imagined him sitting in the Presidential suite, clutching the radio and launching it across the room in an enraged fit. Corinne regarded her with a question in her eyes, and Aleah shook her head. 

"I'm going as far north as I can," one of guards started. "Tonight. Anyone one who wants to come with better have enough caps and food to make the trip, or some thing else worth trading."

What a stark reminder that had been to the dancer, who, despite having escaped her debt at the Tops, still had nothing but the lint in her pockets and some fancy garments no one would ever want. Gods, why did she keep finding herself in the same situation?

Brown, frenzied eyes looked at Corinne, and her blue eyes met hers with the same intensity. The only one of them who had been able to accumulate any savings was Corinne, and just two months ago spent them all on several now worthless vault souvenirs and street vendor snacks outside a hotel for cannibals. Her thoughts briefly went to Orris, but she had not seen him in months; the last she heard, he had skipped town himself, but that could be a rumor started by whoever had offed him, as was likely the case. Beatrix was handy with a gun, but had too great of a thirst to keep any caps, and no trip could be made without supplies, which would surely surge in price now. 

People had finally set into motion, and the air felt strange. Within the next hour, the two of them found that they were not above bartering with _anything_ they did have; they also found that the type of currency they could offer did not appeal much to the other desperate citizens. Safety became the priority.

"Whatever we do, we can't stay," Corinne said solemnly. 

"Then let's just go," offered Beatrix. "Y'all might live to see slavery but have you ever seen a ghoul slave? Ha! The Legion's made it clear they're executin' me without a second thought and I’d rather starve to death. There's nothin’ for me here."

"But where?" Corinne wanted to know. 

"I don’t give a damn," Beatrix sighed. "Northwest? Shady Sands looks real good right about now. I have a Pip-Boy one of my Johns left lying around. My eyes are too old to read the tiny letters but maybe one of you infants could do it."

Aleah’s skin prickled. Shady Sands was where her mother mostly recently moved, and the reason she had no caps in the first place… but maybe with the new state of the Mojave, this time would be different.

"Okay. Well... I think Francine's generosity ended with those free drinks. Where do we find our next meal?" Aleah asked, trying not to think of her mother.

"Plenty of geckos out there, innit?" the ghoul mumbled.

"My daddy taught me how to start a fire, and not just in a man's loins," Corinne chimed. The trio chuckled dully in unison. 

"It's settled, then," Aleah confirmed. Immediately she felt overwhelming self-consciousness at the realization that she could not offer anything practical to their situation.  With no combat and few survival skills to speak of, at best she could serve as the pack-brahmin, or keep watch while they slept. 

As had been her internal motto the last few months, it would have to do. Feeling useless would do no one any good at the moment.

Thus at dusk, the trio hugged their almost-friends at the Wrangler and departed with their lightest possessions and carried them through the dust and wind, following the broken roads west, in the direction of the still fading sunset. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aleah is in her early to mid twenties, for anyone who cares. I have other smol fax about her that will be revealed through the plot but anything else you want to know about her, please inquire!
> 
> Would love some feedback!


	14. Memoriae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vulpes leads the march on the Strip and down Memory Lane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I was gone! But here's the update. Hope you enjoy it.

**Vegas, September 1st, mid day**  
  
With victory fresh in their minds and on their blades, many of the Legion's durable soldiers mourned their slain brethren and now wished to celebrate. The senior officers understood that victory merely meant more work to be done, and they prepared to march onto New Vegas's most important locations and begin the lengthy and tiring but necessary process of assimilating its decadent population.

Vulpes Inculta had a renewed appreciation for the ritual as old as the Legion itself, now that he was honored with leading the march onto the Strip. Caesar himself was bedridden and resting up, as the Courier (whose seemingly unparalleled medical skill saved his life) strongly suggested. The Legate Lanius was unavailable, which was a concise way of saying that he was actually busy celebrating at the Fort with a group of acutely unlucky slave women. And Lucius insisted on being present with Caesar in his vulnerable state. That left the fourth in line.

Now, Inculta stopped in the road in front of the Tops and ceremoniously inhaled the air there, which seemed fresher, almost sweeter now that they won. Soldiers adorned in red cleared the buildings, pushing men, women and any other-gendered individuals with the extreme misfortune of being in the wrong place at the right time onto the street, sorting them in lines for execution and enslavement.

           “Ave,” a voice called, approaching the officer. Instantly he recognized Alerio, his capable second, and greeted him in turn. Cassius was in tow with a few minor wounds already healing and a different, more mature air about him; apparently going to war and being an instrument of justice transformed him for the better. Cato Hostilius was not present, but his orchestration of President Kimball’s assassination was vital, as was the aid of the Courier— he planned to present him with the title of an honorary Frumentarius should not he not be interested in the actual work.

Vulpes felt a swell of pride at the fact that even though each segment of the Legion had contributed, all of the men under him not only survived, but also had thrived and played an invaluable part in their victory at Hoover Dam. So much pride, in fact, that he had entrusted the present two men with a very important task related to his minor dalliance with the Tops.

"No one by the description you provided was seen in the Tops or anywhere else on the Strip," Cassius began with his new, even voice. Vulpes nodded; he had not expected Aleah to wait around there for him since the last time they'd interacted, given the fright he left her with, so that was fine. What he had expected was for her to take refuge at the Atomic Wrangler. He briefly considered planting eyes there but thought better of it— it would have been a frivolous misuse of resources. So for the time being, he let Aleah slip away with confidence he could easily locate her later, which was why he'd instructed Alerio to inquire there and in other parts of Freeside. He looked at him expectantly.

"She was at the Atomic Wrangler, last seen yesterday night," Alerio appended. "She and the ghoul as well as another companion were headed on the road going west."

"Another companion?" Vulpes pushed calmly. His mind flashed to the "mercenary" known as Orris and bristled inwardly. He thought the man had disappeared but if he were still in Vegas, Vulpes would execute him later, either way.

"A woman who worked as a crier at the Atomic Wrangler," Alerio continued, his rare expression was a mixture of mild disapproval and disinterest. "Her lover." 

Vulpes remained neutral, and gave a low "mm." Whoever the companion was, she would have to go too… but women in good health were valuable to the Legion, so killing her was not the best option. Nevertheless, she must be played as a card against the dancer and punished for her corruption.

"And your source?" he queried.

"James and Francine Garret. They as well as their bar have been confiscated."

"Interesting. I would have expected them to flee," the head Frumentarius commented. In his reconnaissance work, visiting the Atomic Wrangler was somewhat custom. From what he learned of its owners, they were dispassionate about most interests unrelated to economics or degenerate activity with robots. Surely they would have moved on to the next thing.

"Well, they had quite a bit of sentimental attachment to their establishment, being sibling pioneers. They did attempt to put up a fight," Alerio admitted. His commander's eyebrows rose in amused curiosity, and Alerio smiled coolly, which was also rare. The scuffle had clearly left him satisfied. "The resistance was easily dispatched, of course."

“Excellent work. After you assist here, the two of you will pack for the road and pursue their group westward. The two human women are to be escorted here reasonably unharmed.”

“And the ghoul?” Cassius asked. Vulpes shrugged noncommittally.

“She likely poses the greatest combat threat of them all. Eliminate her and you should have no trouble,” was all he said. Just then, the shriek of a child forcefully separated from his father pierced the air and all heads in the vicinity instinctively turned toward it, Vulpes' included. 

The child, with sandy skin and black silky hair, clung to his father's leg and shrieked louder when Cassius stepped up to intervene and pried his fingers away. The father wanted to kick at the Legionaries holding him but fretted, lest he hit his son. The boy looked like he barely touched seven years old, and while it was rare that Vulpes interact with soon to be Legion children, he was the acting leader on the Strip so it was up to him to quash any displays of resistance, no matter the age of the individual from who they came. In addition to that, something felt oddly… familiar in this child. The head Frumentarius approached him.

"Stay away from my boy!" the father bellowed from deep within his chest, struggling in vain against the muscled arms restraining him. Vulpes ignored him and smiled thinly at the child.

"How fortunate you are," he began, seizing the small, red teary face by its jaw with one hand, other behind his back. "You are about to become a soldier for the most powerful force in the Wasteland. Look. Look around you." Gently, he twisted the boy's chin, and the little one found himself taking in each of the kneeling bodies with watery brown eyes. Most of their features were mangled with various forms of injury from struggle, grief and shock. He then took in the confident and healthy looking warriors in control of them, Alerio and Cassius included.

"You have a new home. You will have a new, beautiful language to speak, new friends to grow and learn with and a new family to protect you and forge you into a man worth being, and yet you snivel," Vulpes said coldly, then softened slightly. "Everything you leave behind, you will not miss for long, I promise. This land, these people, their ways—they deserve to be in your past, but you… you are destined to be part of a great future. Accepting your fate shall make the transition easier."

The child stared up with glazed eyes, wanting to process the information but delayed by the shock. His cries ceased though and he sniffled, genuinely considering the words while wiping his nose. Vulpes beckoned for a trained slave to take him away lest he begin to sob again.

"Inspiring," Caesar spoke in their tongue, approaching Inculta from behind. The high noon sun beat down, creating a glare on the forehead of the Legion's illustrious leader. "Perhaps he will make a fine Frumentarius one day."

"Glad to see you are feeling better, my lord. Have you already decided his fate?"

"Thank you, and I have. But perhaps I should leave the honor of his name to you, since he has clearly made an impression. It is most rare to find you addressing the young ones," Caesar prompted.

"I am sure you are much more capable."

"Nonsense. I insist." 

A person's name was just as critical as a person's fate; one could say they were one and the same. Such a decision was a burden Vulpes' certainly did not wish to bear so lightly but a legionary did not refuse orders from the Bull himself. Clouded by thought, Vulpes' blue eyes steeled over to a grey shade that would have been quite becoming had he not always radiated such severity; internally he winced at the command, but ever the epitome of composure, outwardly the younger officer offered a mild smile to the older one.

He thought of how wet the child's eyes had been, and it jogged a distant memory of a lake. 

_A young boy sat beside his father on a worn dock with his thin, dirty legs dangling over the edge. Between his thighs he clutched a rickety fishing pole. The father pulled fishing line from the pole with one hand and an agitated earthworm squirmed between the fingers of his other, leaving behind the residue worms do. The father united the worm with the rusty hook on the end of the line, curling it around like a scarf, and the boy's eyes began to water._

_It struck him to see the slimy creature's guts squish out; it was ugly but it was the visible anguish that tugged at the child's heart. His father observed him momentarily then pulled him close, blotting the unspilled tears with his sleeve. He told the boy that the worm's sacrifice was crucial to their survival. It was simply the way of the world, that everything must consume and eventually be consumed, and that they were part of the ageless cycle. The fish catches the worm and the man catches the fish._

_"Who catches the man?" the boy asked in their language, curious blue-grey eyes looking up. The father sat pensive and quiet, casting the line into the lake. It landed with a plop, splash, and somewhere beneath the surface, the worm's remains were reanimated by the waves.  He never answered._

"Mare Maestus," Vulpes suggested vacantly. Then he blinked, disguising his alarm that his thoughts would go to such a place. Caesar nodded, watching him with peculiarity.

"So it shall be."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, leave some f e e d b a c k.


	15. Roadtrip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aleah and Co. continue on their merry way, and she fights off thoughts of her own past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the story get to 1000 views before the next scheduled update, I will post it early! Almost there... so send this trash fic to your trash-lovin' buddies!

**Mojave Desert, September 1st at dusk to 2nd, dawn**  
  
  
There was something about a campfire that made people feel like everything was okay in the world. Sitting around the crackling flames and inhaling the scent of fragrant wood roasting, being with friends, even if they were terrified and aimless, seemed to calm the three traveling women. They sat on dry, fractured ground, and the aura of the sun peeked over the eastern horizon. The air was crisp, and there was enough light for Aleah to poke a threaded needle through Beatrix's old duster, pulling tight a button that tried to escape.

Before leaving Freeside that first night, she had absentmindedly thrown the travel sewing kit into her pack with her other things, and the next night while they trudged slowly along a westward road under the velvety blanket of the sky, she heard the ghoul light off yet another string of creative curses, as she had taken to doing at least twice an hour with long stretches of silence in between. Most of Beatrix’s profanities were directed at the NCR and its supposed incompetence or Courier Six and his treachery, although a few were directed at “those Legion shitbricks” in general. She was taking the news hard still and processing it in the only way she knew how.

Exhausted, Corinne just looked to Aleah to handle this round since it didn’t seem to be directed at any faction in particular.

"What is it?"

"Everything's fallin’ apart, everything. My jacket is at it now. Goddamn button came off," she snapped.

"You still have it?" Aleah asked, her synapses sparking to life. The ghoul held it up in the air and tossed it back to Aleah, who caught it gracefully. Finally, something within her skill set that would make a difference! She cupped the button in her hands like a prize, eyes lighting up. "We've been walking for awhile, let's take a break."

"And for the love of god, let's barbecue that gecko, or else," Corinne added brusquely. The recently deceased creature, now lying over the ghoul's shoulder and stirring with each step, had comically large, unseeing eyes that stared at Corinne for the last hour. She would have found it disconcerting if she weren't so focused on the growing pain in her abdomen. "I have been to the Ultra Luxe, I'm not above eating one of you for breakfast."

"You splashed in a fountain in front of the steps," Aleah amended, squinting her eyes in mock judgment.

"Proximity to madness changes people." It was the most profound thing any of them ever heard come out of Corinne’s mouth, and it was connected to a bluff. Aleah threw her head back in laughter and the canyon nearby mimicked her, laughing back. The other two women found themselves joining her and a short-lived, maniacal chorus resulted.

Obviously delirious with shock and exhaustion, they shuffled off the derelict highway to make camp. The gecko roasted on a makeshift spit until it was safe to consume and the three women gobbled it down. Thirstier than usual, Beatrix drank herself to sleep and Aleah sat up too wired to rest. Corinne let her head lie against her lover's lap and fell asleep, relishing the soft fingers shooting pleasure tingles through her scalp. Aleah admired the way the fire sent shadows dancing across her face and resisted the deep-rooted desire to kiss her; she knew her lover was a light sleeper and a dog-tired one.

After making camp and dinner, essentially alone she sat, listening to the wind whip against the giant, craggy rocks behind them and moan like a solitary specter, calling to her. The voice augmented, stirring Corinne and earning shivers, and Aleah nestled closer to her lover.

One of the things her mind did best was constantly mull over the worst of things. Refusing to give any further thought to the Legion and its acquisition of Vegas, Aleah’s reflections moved onto the next most traumatic thought: her mother. While she would be safe for the time being in Shady Sands, surely the settlement with its NCR capitol status was next on the Legion’s list of good things in the world to absorb—it also occurred to Aleah now that maybe they shouldn’t go there themselves. And the ‘Big Shot,’ her stepfather, traveled often between Broken Hills where he made his mining fortune and Vault City where he invested it, leaving her mother with a caretaker for stretches of time after she became too feeble to make the trips. He probably had a side fling going on now that her mother was unable to serve the one purpose she had for him.

Still Aleah hoped to the Gods he would move her up to Vault City permanently. There wasn’t that much time left for the woman, but Aleah didn’t want her mother’s last months to be cut short by a Legion machete that deemed her decrepit. She was dying of radiation sickness, her body well past its prime to take to any medicine long term. It kept coming back like a bad song stuck in the head, probably because of the years she spent with her husband overseeing the uranium mines in Broken Hills.

Aside from her husband being a dog who looked at his adopted child like a meaty drumstick, the constant radiation exposure must have been why Aleah’s mother sent her away to stay in Vegas with an old friend. All she had to do was come with… but she didn’t. She chose to stay with the man. Her reasons, whatever the hell they were, would never matter to the child she forced to move on without her. How could a mother doubt herself so harshly to make that choice and not follow her young?

Contempt blazed in the pit of Aleah’s gut, green and ugly and fierce and too tainted by the pesky, unconditional love toward their parents that children are infused with, to ever evolve into full-on hatred. She hated her mother, and she loved her mother, and she hated _that_ she loved her.

Aleah inhaled and held in her air until the flames in her heart died down just as the campfire had.

Restless hours passed for the former performer and when there was enough light, Aleah had set to work securing the button to the duster. So currently she threaded the needle carefully, winding it through the holes and fabric with expert fingers, taking extra care not to disturb Corinne. Then, she sewed shut a few holes here and there, taking care not to fix them all, as to keep the jacket looking “badass” since that was how the ghoul liked it. It was a simple job but one she was very qualified to do, and judging from Beatrix's sleepy yet very grateful grin at waking to find (nearly) everything in one piece, it was an important job.

"Well look at that," the ghoul coughed. She took the jacket and held it up, her aged eyes examining it closely. "Like new. Say, can you put my skin back together like that?"

Aleah smiled triumphantly and Corinne began to stir to life. Once she was up, she pulled a small pan and a fork from her pack and started to fry up some gecko eggs for the small group. Beatrix squinted at her Pip-Boy for a long time, her eggs going cold. Aleah scarfed her own eggs down and suddenly felt the exhaustion from staying up all night kick her with the force of a bighorner’s hind quarters. She swayed slightly and looked a little drunk to the others.

"You okay?" Corinne asked. She got a nod in response.

“I’ve been thinking," Beatrix started without looking up from the Pip-Boy. "I want to go to west to Necropolis.”

"What's that?" Aleah asked. It sounded like a city full of graves based on the name.

"It might be a ghost town but talk is there's a city of ghouls livin' underneath..." she explained. Now the name made sense to Aleah.

"Why would you want to go there?" Corinne asked with a mouthful of eggs. Aleah seared her with a look. "Oh! Right. Sorry."

"I think it's important that I... reconnect with people like me," the ghoul went on. The blonde gave a very emphatic puppy dog look and then said what she and Aleah were both thinking but only one of them had the nerve to say.

"Where are we gonna go? Can we come with you?" she borderline interrogated the woman. Beatrix's features tightened, the shiny, almost scaly scar tissue stretching faintly.

"We're going to Shady Sands, remember Corinne?" Aleah interjected. Beatrix looked grateful for the save, then frowned.

"How are we going to get there without her? She's the only one of us who has and knows how to use a gun!" Corinne whined, her voice growing frantic.

"We'll... figure it out," Aleah promised her. She didn't know how they would make it there in one piece but Beatrix had already done so much for them that they couldn't fault her for the need to detour to find herself again.

"Well… no," Beatrix drawled. "I don't think Shady Sands is safe for y'all."

"I don't think so either," Aleah added. "I have a feeling that it’s next on Caesar’s menu of places to rape, pillage and ruin for fun.”

"Me too," said the Ghoul. "I think y'all should go to the Hub. It's NCR territory still and it's on the way to Necropolis. I can get you there safely and..." She swallowed, not meeting their eyes.

“And then do what is it you need to,” Aleah proffered. “You can send us a postcard, maybe come out and stay with us every couple months.” The idea made Aleah feel warm and tingly.

“Y’all gonna shack up?” Beatrix inquired with puckered lips, making sultry kissy faces. Both of the dancer’s eyebrows rose in surprise and the brown orbs beneath them locked with Corinne. She hadn’t even thought of that. They already shared a domestic space more out of force than choice; the living arrangement existed before they transmuted into whatever they were. But the thought of getting a home together made things so much more… official-seeming. They hadn’t been a ‘thing’ very long but time to play the field extensively was a luxury in the Mojave Wasteland. Living together as a couple was an exciting prospect to Corinne too, and the two of them looked at each other like such coy, new lovers that Beatrix audibly gagged. “Good lord.”

“Please don’t tell me that’s why you don’t want to stay with us,” Corinne begged. She really didn’t want to see her go.

“I’m doing this because I have to,” the gunslinger clarified. It was the truth, and it was said so emphatically that no one doubted her or protested it further.

 

**

Traveling in silence for extended periods was something Cassius still needed to grow accustomed to. He and Alerio went between sprinting and fast paced walking to make time and catch up with their target, but for most of the time, the only noise he could pick up was that of the controlled breathing of his partner and their rapid footfalls.

As much as he admired his brothers-in-arms, especially fellow Frumentarii, they didn't make for great conversation during missions it appeared. It could be that the pensive looking Alerio didn't have a lot to say or the fact that they didn't know one another well, but it felt like he was in a competition to see who could go the longest without speaking a word, and Cassius was about to lose. Even though he’d been a little hardened from battle, the younger man felt anxious and began to wonder if he was cut out for the Frumentarii life, but Inculta and Caesar both seemed pleased with his progress. He did well among the Mojave factions he gathered intelligence on, although due to his relative inexperience, those interactions were kept to a minimum.

But Cassius felt nervous around his comrades, like he had something to prove.  
A subtle gleam crept over the eastern horizon, inviting the rest of the sky to lighten along with it. The Legion party of two moved along, clad in nondescript merc grunt suits and carrying packs with food and extra weapons. They passed a small unit of Legion men that they couldn’t interact with, since recruits were instructed never to initiate contact with Frumentarii out in the field to keep from blowing their cover, robbing him from yet another opportunity of social interaction.

So they continued on the road with century-old cracks beneath their feet, and they passed by billboards weathered by age and jaundice, sometimes with newer paint over them. Cassius snickered and pointed to one that read "FUCK NCR" in hopes of eliciting some emotional response from Alerio. There was none. But there had to be _something_ Alerio would chat about. Maybe there was more about the mission at hand that the other man knew of. It did seem like a peculiar task.

"What do you think Vulpes Inculta wants with this Aleah woman?" The combination of the question spoken aloud and Alerio's mildly judgmental stare made Cassius regret the words just as they flew from his mouth. If Aleah were an informant, surely they would have been notified; this had to be something personal and discretion was undoubtedly Alerio's middle name.

Well, so much for a chat. Now there was silence and he felt like a fool.

They ambled on much in the same way until the sun was high in the sky, its heat creating strange mirages in the road ahead. The two men did come up on a sizable cluster of radscorpions and eliminated them supposedly with ease. After Cassius thought all was said and done, Alerio's voice boomed once with a warning, preventing a nasty sting to Cassius's calf from one of the younger creatures just in the nick of time. He guessed it didn't matter how mute his travel companion was, his actions were loud enough when it came down to it. It also seemed to do the trick for breaking the ice.

"Thank you, brother."

"You must hone your perception more," Alerio eventually said. Even if it was the beginning of a lecture, Cassius took the break of silence gratefully.

"Maybe. I did well enough at Hoover Dam though," he chirped excitedly. 

"This is true, which is why you should not allow a young scorpion to jump you," Alerio said in his matter-of-fact tone, face still blank.

Suddenly Cassius yearned for the peace and quiet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think, if ya want.


	16. Puttin' on the Blitz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A surprise awaits the travelers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo my little challenge to make 1000 views before posting was not met, came just four hits shy. Maybe it was because I didn't add it to the post until a couple days after updating, maybe it's because it was never meant to be. :'( But hopefully it will provide incentive for you all to feel bad enough to leave feedback, lmao. 
> 
> This chapter may certainly warrant some.

**Mojave Desert, September 2nd, morning  
**

 

Aleah wasn’t one to shy away from general naughty thoughts that emerged. Before the Legion takeover, she often found herself unabashedly _playing_ into most of them when appropriate and having some… fun. But for the last however many weeks she’d been with Corinne, she did at least try to keep the thoughts on her, although a thought or two about Mr. Fox would weasel its way in… every once in awhile. Maybe weekly. Okay, daily.

The waves of desire, confusion and fear mixed together would wash up toward her and each time, she swam away from them to shore, propelled by both rationality and a smidgeon of guilt. But gods, she was tired and her mental defenses were not at their peak, so while she tried and was usually successful in pushing him away, this morning wasn’t one of those times.

The memory of Mr. Fox’s face was dim; she’d only seen him a few times and there was no photo to remember him by, which was probably for the best, but his actions, his aura and his voice Aleah recalled with striking clarity. He popped into her head during one of the lulls of her trek with her friends, grabbing her by the waist and whispering something firm into her ear about how soft she was and what he’d like to do to—

Her loins contracted once. The former performer breathed with a hitch and shook her head, warranting a concerned glance from her friends. She was in dire need of a distraction.

"Maybe there have been updates, we should leave the radio on," Aleah suggested innocently and so they did.

The usual instrumentals and other classics clinked out from the Pip-Boy for the first half hour the group meandered along. Sometimes they would hum together, and despite her gravelly voice, the ghoul had excellent tone. Corinne commented on it, contrasting it from her own off key wails.

"I been around long enough, I should know how to hold a note by now," Beatrix replied. 

"Just how old are you anyway?" Aleah asked, head cocked and grinning loopily. Clearly the lack of sleep impaired her ability to filter herself in conversation as well, but Beatrix did not mind in the least. For all intents and purposes, she was among family.

"Over two hundred years," she said, looking at her rifle. "You tend to lose count when you hit the triple digits and just start to guessin', but I know I was a teenager when the Great War happened. People say it's been two hundred fifty odd years since then."

"How... uh... how long _can_  you live?" was Corinne's follow up.

"Hell if I know," Beatrix drawled. "But I don't know if I wanna be around forever. You see a lot of shit.”

“Like?” Corinne chirped naïvely. It was a question Aleah wasn’t sure she wanted an answer to but Corinne seldom had tact.

“Like death, Corinne. Seen a lot of friends go. Just four years ago was the most recent, there was a woman who was like a sister to me, though I was old enough to be her granny’s granny. We were close until she got involved with a no-good bastard of a man. They were in love supposedly, but she’d come over hiding the marks he left, saying he was ‘just playing around’ at first, then she claimed he had a lot going on and she was strong enough to bear his pain for him. I’d heard that one before, ha. But men that like to possess women are always the same.

“One day he didn’t stop, beat her to death and I found her. I never saw a head so caved in my life. That’s not the only thing though, she was one among many. I’ve seen people go from every type of disease, every violent act. It never ends because that’s life: you get close to people and you lose ‘em. But I’ve lived four lifetimes.”

“Uh… thank you for sharing that,” Corinne added solemnly. The conversation had taken such a serious turn. “How are you still holding it together?”

“You go numb after awhile, but booze helps,” Beatrix admitted. “It's rough watching everyone you know eventually die."

"All the more reason to be among your folks," Aleah wondered aloud. Other ghouls shared her experiences with their own long lives, and were not likely to perish in the same natural ways that she and Corinne were. No one said anything for a while after that; the thought of being too mortal for their friend left the two unmutated women grave.

After some more walking, Mr. New Vegas's voice crackled from the speakers.

_"This is Mr. --KRRR--Vegas reporting live. A Caesar's Legion battalion or scouting group has been spotted on the highway going to Shady Sands, just outside Vegas. Intelligence reports claim that after a few days of recuperation, the Legion is likely to try to take the NCR city next. More as it comes."_

"You were right," Aleah said after a minute. “Should we be worried?”

“Nah. We’re way ahead and we’ll see ‘em comin’ a mile away in red.”

Silence cloaked them again. After five minutes of more walking, Aleah felt a prickle down the back of her neck. She twirled around, squinting with suspicion.

"What's up?" Corinne prompted. Beatrix whipped around, rifle at the ready. She scanned the area and determined nothing was there, then regarded Aleah curiously.

"I... I felt something weird, like—" her head swiveled about, trying to find the eyes she swore she felt on her; she’d had enough eyes on her in her lifetime to know the feeling of being watched... but there was nothing except the morning sun and some tumbleweed. "I don't know."

"You're seein' shit. Shoulda slept," Beatrix scolded her.

"You said it. I feel like shit," she mumbled. 

The ghoul checked her Pip-Boy for the time and it read 09:00 hours. "We need the daylight to move, can't afford to stop now."

“I know, I know,” the former dancer added sullenly.

The next series of events occurred with such brevity that she never had time to formulate another thought.

Something whizzed by them. It sounded like the speedy buzz of a wasp, Aleah thought. Corinne shrieked, high and shrill, and when Aleah looked over to her lover, where there was supposed to be the dirty white fabric of the cuff of her shirt beneath her wasteland settler overalls, there was a splotch of red. They'd been walking west on a road, and to the south there was a wall of rock, east and north was open, hilly desert with cacti and mesquite bushes and rocks: perfect for cover. There was a loud crack from the road behind them, like a service rifle. Not wasps flying by, Aleah realized. Bullets.

"GET DOWN!" Beatrix screeched, already taking cover behind a rock and searching for the direction from whence the gunfire erupted. She lifted the gun above her head and blindly unloaded a clip. Aleah rushed Corinne to the rock the ghoul hid behind. 

"Oh god, oh god, I'm hit!" Corinne wailed. Aleah examined her upper arm: the bullet just grazed her, taking some skin off. She ripped the shirt on Corinne's back to blot and bandage the shallow scrape. 

"It just scraped you, you'll be fine!" she assured her. Beatrix fired again and once she was empty, she muttered an expletive. There was silence again, save for their labored breathing and Aleah's furious examination of Corinne to ensure there were no other wounds. 

Westward, up ahead of them, the southern wall of rock ended. Had they walked a few more minutes, they would have seen the area that opened up to the south. Aleah would have focused less on the wounded blonde, and Beatrix would not have been so focused on the eastern flank, and they all would have seen the man in the merc grunt outfit sneaking along, partially camouflaged against the red rocks. But they didn't. So when the man's bullet cut through the back of Beatrix's throat, she clutched herself in surprise and slumped over.

Aleah had a choice to make: save her friend whose neck was leaking blood like a hose, or put as many holes as she could into the man sprinting toward them now at full speed. Time felt like it had slowed down while she weighed the options. Her mind was made up.

Aleah lunged for the gun, screaming at Corinne to hold the ghoul's neck, and she set her sights on the man closing in on them when he veered to the side, trying to dodge whatever bullets she would send his way before they came. She took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger, but the weapon clicked and nothing else happened.

The man, whose face she could see now, seemed to have heard the click and was grinning like he'd won the lottery. The dust his feet kicked up obscured him partially and Aleah pressed the trigger again, hoping for a miracle. In the next ten seconds, he was on them wrenching the gun from her grip that she swung at him like a bat and chucking it away. She tried to hit him with her hands and he effortlessly dodged her then countered, taking her down with the back of his hand and she saw stars and flying colors. While she writhed on the ground, he grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her, locking it and pressing downward. 

The scream that resulted made Corinne's stomach turn, but she didn't have time to do anything about it, because after fastening a cloth bandage from her shirt around Beatrix’s throat and looking down to see the ghoul’s blood coating her abdomen, she heard a click and turned to find the barrel of a gun with a long silencer fixed on it held by another strange man, pointing directly between her eyes.  

"Up," was all he said, with no emotion or any other indication of all the madness that transpired in the last two minutes. Corinne looked at Beatrix whose eyes rolled to the back of her head; she was clocking out soon. The blonde stood, shell shocked and quiet. The only sound was another of Aleah's piercing screams.

"Please! Don't break it!" she begged hysterically.

"Cassius," the man aiming the gun at Corinne began speaking in a foreign language to the other; even while on the ground and in extreme pain, Aleah recognized it to be Latin... which likely meant they were from the Legion, even though they were dressed like mercenaries. The man with the gun seemed somewhat more experienced and certainly much calmer than the man ready to dislocate her shoulder from the rest of her body, and whatever he said encouraged the other Legion man to release her arm. Relief immediately flooded her joint, even though it would still be sore for hours, if not days.

"You, up!" the younger-seeming soldier barked, as if he wasn't the reason she was down there in the first place. Once she got to her feet, her eyes fell on Beatrix's unmoving form, prompting an intense wave of nausea that nearly knocked her back down. This had to be a nightmare, she thought, but the pain of her shoulder almost snapping felt all too real. The world felt like it should have ended, but everything looked normal around them somehow. Were she not numb, Aleah would be livid at the idea of the universe continuing on like nothing was wrong, like her best friend, her _family_ wasn't just ripped out of it. 

"What do you want with us?! Let us go!" Corinne squealed when she could speak. As much as she cared for her, sometimes Aleah wondered if Corinne could think in stressful situations at all. The absurdity of someone asking some mercs, let alone possibly men of the Legion to let two able bodied and attractive women go pissed Aleah off almost more than the capture itself. They were prize captures and were now going to be divvied up among a group of hungry dogs like meat. Just as soon as the anger surged through her, she deflated like a sad balloon, exhausted physically and emotionally. There was no point in fighting; Beatrix had been their only hope and now she was dead in the sand, put down like an animal. 

Now they were fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. Leave it all below.


	17. Return to Sender

**Vegas, September 2nd**

  
  
The human mind and body have many crucial mechanisms in place to ensure its survival, but some of those basic needs ultimately take the lead. Exhaustion and the need to replenish one's stores competes toe-to-toe with fear and the need to feel safe, with the ‘victor’ usually being circumstantially specific. Both women had their fair share of either, but for Corinne, the winner was fear. For Aleah, it was exhaustion.

The women plodded along eastward in the boiling desert sun, wrists bound and flanking their captors with dismay. Each of the four of them, the two Legion men and the two Vegas women, produced no sound except the soft crunch of road gravel beneath boots and the wheels of Aleah's small suitcase pulled by one of the men, with Aleah's ragged panting and the occasional bout of panicked hyperventilation from Corinne. 

Since she realized later they were abducted by Caesar's legion, Corinne's mind was blank with shock but every once in awhile it would go to the image of Beatrix lying bloody in the sand, eyes unfocused and glossy. Her exhales would escalate nearly into a sob before Aleah would quietly murmur "think about the fountain" or "remember Vault 22." The first time Corinne was assaulted by a panic attack, Aleah tried to offer physical comfort, but that was cut short quickly by the younger Legionary. He sneered angrily at her and forcefully shoved her to the ground while his cohort looked on with no emotion. The altercation worked in its own way to keep Corinne calm. She knew if she seriously freaked out again, her friend could pay the price. Otherwise, just the voice of her lover and a gentle suggestion would quell her.

Alternatively, Aleah thought of everything and everyone _constantly:_ Beatrix dying violently, the ache of her shoulder having been nearly twisted to breaking point, the hardships of slavery and surely rape awaiting them, her mother right smack dab in the middle of the next Legion target.Those thoughts, coupled with the fact that she never actually slept the day before and consequently had been awake since the morning of the day they found out the Legion took the dam, left her body wrought with fatigue. Her vision blurred dangerously with rising frequency. A few times, Corinne noticed her swaying, and having seen what happened before when they tried to touch each other, she felt a wrenching of her heart at her perceived futility. The ropes tying them were long with sturdy knots and she feared yet another thing: should her lover collapse, they might drag her along before they tired of literally pulling her weight and disposed of her completely.

Corinne desperately wished she had a dose of Jet for some energy to give her friend, then vaguely remembered the Legion wouldn't like that too much. She looked at the back of the hats of the soldiers, glaring laser beams and imagining them melting through fabric and turning their brains to goop.

It wasn't until hours into their solemn trek when Aleah tripped over her own dragging feet and teetered over, that staring daggers turned into tangible courage. Corinne ducked under Aleah's left arm and nestled herself under her armpit, forcing Aleah to lean on her. The shuffling and jostling of the rope made the Legion men whip around at the same time, both of them peering suspiciously. Corinne stared them back silently with an expression rivaling solid steel and the two men took in the sight of Aleah, her eyes drooping and rolling to display the whites, and her head bobbing slightly, and they seemed to have decided there that they'd let Corinne do the work of carrying the woman.

They walked for eight hours, stopping just twice for five minutes to drink stale, lukewarm water from a gourd.

Eventually the sun migrated westward, beating them down with moderately less fury, when on the southeastern horizon, the tiny silhouette of the Lucky 38 crept into view. Corinne was awash with relief as she realized she wouldn't have to carry Aleah much farther... then awash with dread at whatever was waiting for them behind the walls of Vegas. A little gloomy funerary march tune played in the back of Corinne's head and delirious with fatigue, she snickered at the sound of horns no one else could hear. Then she looked at Aleah who was on the verge of passing out, and found a moment's worth of jealousy for the durable bodies of their captors. They were obviously better equipped to carry the woman but they didn't care.

The sun dipped lower out of sight the closer they got to the Freeside entrance. All the way up to the gate, the desert was too quiet: no fiends, no geckos and no cazadores. It was as if all forms of life that didn't submit to the Legion had been eradicated from the immediate surrounding area, or at least knew to keep away. The atmosphere of the Mojave just felt different, and Corinne yearned for some sort of indication of what the hell was next but knew asking the two goons she followed wouldn't get her a damned thing.

Entering the gates was even more shocking. The Kings that normally stood around looking suave and winking at Corinne were nowhere in sight. The noises of doctors treating moaning gamblers on the other side of the old Mormon fort were replaced with the sounds of children and women weeping or speaking in a language she couldn't figure out. Even the guy who sold the tasty rat kebabs was gone. Instead a bunch of soldiers in red hung around, eyeing their party curiously. One of them called out that he found the new "slave girls" quite appealing, which gave her the creeps. Then as they passed the very corner Corinne used to shout on, a worn woman with a giant pack on her back and a giant red X on her dirty dress stood there awaiting orders from a soldier who barked at her in that same language; the woman wouldn't meet her eyes as Corinne looked over. It was starting to settle in what her life would be from now on. 

There was no moon tonight but the artificial lights of Vegas swept over the piles of rubble in Freeside, lighting them up all the same. No thugs ran up on them in search of caps, instead replaced by more and more Legionaries. The Securitrons appeared to all be decommissioned and lied somberly in a giant metal clump near the campfire where the friendly Old Ben used to sit. Before entering the Strip, the quad stopped and the two stony figures leading them turned around, extricating Corinne from Aleah. Under most circumstances she would fight, but she was almost as exhausted as her lover, so she let them separate her and watched as the younger, taller man helped carry Aleah in her place. Her eyes hadn't even fluttered while she was being transferred. Had she any moisture to expend, the dehydrated Corinne would weep for her friend.

Once in the Strip, they came to stand just outside the Tops. The men exchanged a few words in their foreign language, then the younger man traded places with the slightly older man that began guiding Aleah in. Corinne automatically moved with them but a hand on her shoulder urging her in the opposite direction toward the Ultra Luxe prevented her from following suit.

"Hey, where is he taking her?! I won't go without her!" she squawked, her voice cracking from the lack of water and lack of use. Given no answer other than a hard jerk of her wrist, she began fighting the younger Legionary with renewed force. It only took an expertly delivered chop to her neck, and the fleshy  _whap_  sound resulting from the impact, for her to fade into unconscious compliance; then she too was dragged away.

 

**

 

Vulpes Inculta sat in his new officer suite at the Tops. The digs were more luxurious than he was accustomed to, but Caesar expressed that handsome rewards were due for all of the elite officers given their stalwart performances and Vulpes found little to protest about. At nightfall, he sat in the spacious waiting area, engulfed by a prewar book about Vegas entertainers in the former presidential suite. He was drained and knew he should sleep but couldn’t, as his body still coursed with the excitement of the week's events and his prize en route; he'd gone nearly twenty four hours awake and tried to busy himself with attaining new information, as was his favorite pastime.

Page after page turned to reveal image after image of glamorous women, decorated nearly beyond recognition and he still found he could not generate any meaningful response toward them. Like with female slaves and other Vegas profligates, the images were irrevocably boring, hollow memories of a thing he actually had no interest in when it did not involve a certain dancer. His interest was undoubtedly in Aleah, who somehow blissfully epitomized life itself when she performed.

Vulpes knew it was trick of fate: the junction of his cold nature with his yearning for true human contact, for a sense of  _substantia_  in another person who was his emotional complement. He admitted to himself weeks ago that Aleah was his foil: everything he desired about her was a stark contrast to his own features, both physically and emotionally, psychologically. It was why he wanted, perhaps _needed_ to own and... consume her in a way. That was it. That was the only way to express simultaneously the urge to destroy a thing and also claim it for himself. The urge existing in the first place, let alone refusing to be dismissed, frustrated him from time to time still but he learned that allowing himself to admit it helped.

Contrary to a few others in Caesar's Legion, Vulpes was not one to shy away from introspection and self -awareness because he imagined those were required for mastery of the self, were that even a realistic thing to achieve. He read enough about psychology in prewar books of medicine to be unafraid to self-diagnose when necessary, but he wasn't yet sure of what to call this fascination.  Occasionally he wished there were another person to share his contemplation with, but there was no one else to trust with the severity of his passion, since it could be considered a sign of weakness among those who reported to him. Alerio was for most intents and purposes his equal but still he was second so he didn’t feel comfortable bringing the matter up to someone below him in rank. As for those above him, Caesar didn't have time for these things (although now that Hoover Dam's battle concluded, that might change), there was never a reason to speak to the Legate Lanius regarding matters that were not tactical and Lucius... Lucius frankly would be the option if Vulpes could get himself to do it, but it was just plain hard to confess to another person.

The buzz of the intercom tore him away from this thoughts and Vulpes was across the room in two seconds flat. He pressed a button and waited in silence.

The crackle of a familiar voice trickled through.

"Ave, Inculta." 

It didn't have to introduce itself. The elevator was sent down, taking about thirty seconds to return. It chirped with a ding and out stepped the Frumentarius, hands behind his back. 

"The woman has been secured and installed in the room you requested," Alerio started. Vulpes examined his second, noting the layer of desert grime coating him.

"Her physical status?"

"She suffers from severe exhaustion as well as moderate dehydration, but is otherwise in good health," he informed him. Vulpes nodded; with desert travel, people arriving tired and thirsty in the amount of time they did was virtually unavoidable. “But there is… one other thing.”

The commander raised his eyebrows.

“Cassius struck her and twisted her arm. There is no permanent damage but I had to step in to prevent the dislocation of her shoulder.”

Vulpes’ eye twitched almost imperceptibly, but he was sure Alerio caught it; he trained him after all. The officer nodded once. It would be dealt with later.

"A slave bathes her now and will leave food and water for when she awakens."

"Excellent work, Alerio. You have done me a great service and may take the next two days for yourself as reward," Vulpes said. Even though neither of them ever showed much emotion with the other, intuitively Vulpes knew his second was warm with appreciation. Without another word, Alerio exited the suite.

Vulpes' face stayed neutral but he could not stop the excitement from making his fingers twitch too. Finally, Aleah was here, in his possession... and he was no longer "Mr. Fox." He was something much worse for her, and now in a position to show her just how powerless to stop him she truly was. Inculta visualized her face when she would see him in his true form, taking in the vexillarius helmet, the flag, the red. He assumed it would be a lot like when she spotted him in the dark of the theater for the first time, those brown doe eyes registering shock and then panic. His cock jumped. Like he practiced many times before, Vulpes bottled up the anticipation and put it away. There would be plenty of time for his plans later and they were detailed ones. For now, the acquisition brought some temporary peace of mind and he could sleep soundly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment below, if you're so inclined!


	18. Square One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aleah gets the surprise of a lifetime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaah. Sweet relief.

**Vegas, September 3rd, morning**  
  
  
The dancer sat in very long, murky tunnel; it felt cloying, stuffy and damp. She held her hand up in front of her face to check if she could see anything, confirming she indeed could not. Next to her she felt a warm, hairy body. She placed her hand on it and could hear light panting, like a dog. The hair was fur, she could definitely tell. There was a canine whimper as a warm, wet tongue licked her hand. Then the panting resumed. Somehow, the dancer understood the dog to be Orris. He didn't have to say a thing, she simply knew it. She could feel Orris lay his head on her lap and sigh and she scratched behind his ears.

Off in the distance, the tiniest sliver of light began to shine. Orris stood at attention and started walking toward it and the dancer trailed after him. Out of nowhere, the dog broke off into a sprint, running far ahead. When the dancer tried to run after him, her legs dragged along, feeling weighted and tingly like bags off sand, and she didn't understand why she couldn't move faster. Then she felt an ominous presence. There was a strange scratching noise behind her and as she turned to look, she saw a pair of glowing, slanted red eyes. The dancer knew in her heart she must run but still she couldn't. She wanted to call out to Orris, tried to, but there was no sound. His silhouette blocked the light and she couldn't see her way anymore; she only heard the scratching. The eyes were moving closer.

Aleah snapped awake with a start, appreciating her almost supernatural ability to lucidly end her night terrors. If only that ability extended to her waking circumstances. She sat up, searching for Corinne and immediately her head swam, and she had to lie back down on her pillow. While horizontal, she studied her surroundings. Weirdly enough, the room she was in looked exactly like her old room in the Tops: the same layout, same floral duvet, curtains, shoes strewn about, her valise spread eagle in the corner and her garments hung up on the coat hook by the door... but the last thing she remembered was the desert. And Beatrix. Something awful had happened.

Had she dreamt up the last three months? Her chest ached at the idea of Corinne being a dream. But if Corinne was real, then Beatrix was dead. Aleah was torn, then shuddered as an intense wave of guilt drowned her for even feeling torn in the first place. Of course she wanted Beatrix to be alive; she would give up anything for that. 

The dancer lied silently in the lowlight of the morning. Much to her appreciation, the curtains were tightly closed, keeping out the growing sunlight that would upgrade her swimming head to a full-service migraine. She turned on her back in the full size bed, listening for any sounds that would indicate what was reality or not. As peculiar a feeling as it was to not know what day or month it was, existing in the limbo of uncertainty either way was oddly comforting, so Aleah made no move to find out. She turned to her other side after a couple minutes and her eyes settled on a bottle of purified water and some fruit on a plate on the nightstand. Now she could not think of anything else but devouring everything, and she did.

In just a few minutes, the dancer was surrounded by fruit cores and sated. She didn't even spend too much time thinking about how she probably wouldn't have left fruit on her nightstand and that she _definitely_  wouldn't have ordered room service, but she was so famished she could not care less. The sugars and electrolytes gave her the energy to sit up, and now her headache was just a dull throb. The last of the water passed her lips and went into the acid pool with the rest of the consumables. 

Finally Aleah looked down at herself; even though she didn’t typically sleep in her fancier lingerie, for some reason she was clad in a special red babydoll that was cute and frilly, and it was definitely one of hers... Maybe it _had_ been a dream all this time. She couldn’t think of a valid reason she'd be dressed this way in her old bed otherwise, considering her last lucid memory was one of nightmarish mercenaries assaulting her and her friends. Why would they bring her back to her home from months ago and why else would home look exactly the same? Maybe she’d gotten really drunk with Beatrix and decided to live a little off the stage, and treat herself to hopping around in lovely garments and eating dedcadent fruit. It wasn’t impossible…

Aleah had to know for sure. When she was positive the simple act of standing wouldn't render her dizzy, the woman pulled her blanket back and stood, coming toward the curtains over the window and peering out. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the Strip and the little red action figures littering it, moving about in organized rows. 

The Legion. 

So everything she dreaded had occurred. Then Beatrix was gone. But where was Corinne? Why the hell had the menaces of the Mojave gone through so much trouble to restore her bedroom with uncanny accuracy?

Aleah wasn’t waiting around to find out, so she was across the room throwing on shoes, her duster and her cowboy hat with urgency. She gently unlocked the door and it creaked open, but just as she poked her head out, she spotted a sentry at the end of the hall. He spotted her too and greeted the dancer with a mirthless smile. She didn't recognize him but he seemed quite interested in her, though she imagined these guys were always excited about new captives. He remained at the end of the hall and looked in the other direction, obviously so confident she wouldn't be going anywhere that he didn't feel the need to shoo her back into her comfortable prison cell, since she realized that was what it was. And honestly, Aleah was not going to test him. She ducked back inside and locked the door tightly, pressing her back against it and sliding to the floor. 

"Fuck," she murmured.

The grasp of how much of a pickle she was in settled deep in her bones and made itself at home.

 

**

  **Mojave, September 3rd, mid day**  
  


Deep in the heart of the boiling desert, a ghoul lied in a pile of sand, crusty with blood. The ghoul stirred just as a caravan happened by.

 

**  
  
 **Vegas, September 3rd, afternoon**

Sitting around with a whole bunch of nothing to do sucks, to put it lightly. Regardless of one's circumstances, whether you have no new stories to read on a lazy afternoon in bed or you were violently abducted and are now being held captive by a battalion of slaving, murdering rapists; when you're stuck in a room with no options, boredom eats at you... until you get creative.

The first hour after she saw the guard posted outside her room, Aleah nearly made herself sick with worry. When she realized fretting would do her no good and that throwing up the small ration of fruit she'd been given wasn't the best idea, she willed herself to move on.

Being a performer, and her own makeup artist and costume designer, Aleah had a wealth of creativity to apply to her situation. Said inventiveness resulted in a new dress for a nonexistent doll made from a corner of fabric from the duvet covering her bed. Cutting with tiny thread scissors and sewing the minuscule garment by hand until it was impeccably fashioned occupied her for the middle three of the five hours she spent locked in the hotel room. The last hour was spent choreographing and perfecting a new routine she knew she would never perform (now that the slave life awaited) but Aleah hummed the music aloud each run-through anyway and twirled about the space in a way that would delight any onlooker had the situation been less bleak. It almost felt like normal, until she raised her arms in a pose and the soreness in her shoulder nagged at her about its harsh treatment the day before. 

Ultimately Aleah wished her boredom away because she couldn't suspect how much worse the alternative might be; however, a particular high-ranking Legion officer made his way down the hallway outside her room, prepared to enlighten her. 

She didn't hear the doorknob twist initially but it jerked angrily one or two times, jarring her from the middle of a jazz square, and then there was the fumbling of hands with what sounded like keys. As she listened to the locks click in acquiescence, the icy tendril of her reality crept up the back of her neck and she fought panic down like bitter bile.

The door swung open and a mini-nuke went off inside Aleah's stomach. Figuratively.

Mr. Fox, decorated in full Legion regalia complete with sunglasses and a dog headdress, stood in the doorway with the smuggest and yet most subtle smirk on his lips and a terrifying gleam in his eyes emanating from beneath the shades. Behind him was a thin, elderly woman wearing a strange collar and holding a bag, with her line of vision cast down.

There were no words for Aleah's expression, only guttural noises. She felt like the walls were melting, like the floor was sand and she was slipping further in, stuck in the muck of hell. She forgot how to breathe and could hear a high-pitched keening in her right ear; briefly she wished someone would say something because she felt she might have actually gone deaf. It dawned on Aleah that she had a voice herself and it croaked out.

"You... you," she began at a loss. The smirk on Mr. Fox's face spread ear to ear and displayed his neat teeth. "How did... how did you…?"

Mr. Fox responded by cocking his head incrementally to the side and exhaling satisfactorily as his face receded back into stony neutrality.  It was that same air of patting himself on the back he gave off just after he dropped the bomb that he paid off her debt and was prepared to buy the Tops.

The right sellout  _bastard,_ Aleah thought _._  He must have made some deal with the Legion when they stormed through, rolling over without a fight like the dog his hat was made of and earning himself a red uniform and safety. Men would do anything in the wastes; none of them had any honor. Equal parts of fear and rage swirled about in the nuclear cloud eating her stomach lining but Aleah's face went from genuine shock to pure loathing.

 _"You fucking traitor,"_ she hissed. "You bought the Tops and then sold us out. How could you?" 

He smiled again, shaking his head and beginning to close the distance between them.

"Don't lie to me, what's the point?" she asked, fighting the urge to run far, far away.

"I have never told you a lie," he claimed. "Your mistake is assuming I ever held allegiance to anyone other than Caesar."

"But you never said... that," Aleah cried, realizing how silly she sounded just as the words hit the air. Mr. Fox's smirk reinforced the foolish feeling. Why would anyone who valued their own hide just tell someone a thing like that in NCR territory? But lying by omission was still cheap. 

"I thought you assholes wore your colors and dead animals proud. You’re a coward," she tried, having nothing else. He shrugged and when he spoke, his voice had its hallmark lascivious undertone, curling sensually around each enunciated word.

"I like to think of it as... discretion."

"You really were with Caesar's Legion this whole time..." she slowly stated once more for clarification, needing to say the words aloud. "You were apart of all the awful things the Legion has done. The raping, the pillaging, the bodies on crosses." 'Mr. Fox’ gave a curt nod as punctuation and did not look in the least ashamed of his actions. _Mr. Fox..._  those Legion fucks were supposed to have Latin names, Aleah realized. So he _did_ lie, and by extension he lied about never lying, which was the only thing she could even hope to hold him accountable for at this point.

"Well, you lied about your name, Fox," Aleah tried. "You bastards have Latin names, don't you?" He shook his head again.

"I already told you, I have always been honest with you, Aleah. Think about all that I have said,” he came to stand uncomfortably close, just a few inches away from her now. The dancer surprised herself by standing her ground and he surprised her even further by trailing his forefinger from her wrist up the length of her forearm. “I said I wanted you, and you know that I do.” His finger caressed her inner elbow. The tickling made her stomach lurch.

“I said I would _take over_ the Tops and the rest of the Strip, and we did,” Vulpes continued, his calloused digits gliding along her bicep. His touch jolted her like a wire live with electricity, but still she stood.

“You said you would leave and I told you I would find you, _wherever_ you go. Then you did and I did,” he continued to stroke her shoulder and traced the delicate clavicle bone there, finally stopping at the base of her throat. Of course the whole time, Aleah was utterly petrified: she wrestled both the reasonable urge to flee and the strangely persistent but stupid compulsion to fall into him… How had so much time passed with another lover and these feelings still existed? How, even after this horrific revelation, could she still feel unshakeable attraction toward him?

“Then I said I would have you, and I do…” the Legionary declared, and his hand closed just around her neck. When Aleah’s eyes widened and her lips puckered into an involuntary pout, it took everything in him not to devour her then and there. Instead he swallowed, then finished his monologue. “Or at least, I will. And soon. As for the name—well, I am Vulpes Inculta, leader of the Frumentarii. Vulpes is Latin for 'fox.'"

Several seconds passed with neither of them speaking a word. He never released her neck either.

"And 'Inculta'?" Aleah asked finally, shock numbing her and sucking any intonation from her words.

"'Savage' is a rough translation."

It was a great opening for a quip, but Aleah did not have one. She didn't have anything at the moment and seriously doubted she would have anything ever again.

"You said I 'sold you out.' It is interesting that you speak of the Tops and the people here as if you still have feelings for them, but they never cared for you," Vulpes said thoughtfully. His hand rubbed her throat with mock affection and the words might have stung if she hadn't felt entirely hollow. He could feel her swallowing against his palm and he kept himself from squeezing. "Why do you still hold some form of fealty to them?"

"Probably the same reason you are loyal to the Legion," she offered once she had a moment to adjust. His eyes steeled over; she guessed the comparison hit a nerve within. Fighting the urge to scoff because she didn't think he had nerve endings in the first place, Aleah continued. "It was all I had, I thought." Until Beatrix. Until the Wrangler, and Corinne. Being in her room made the feelings for the Tops flood back.

"But the Legion actually provides for its own," Vulpes countered. Aleah smiled knowingly, lifting her chin within his grip. _Time to fight back,_ she thought.

"Ooh, I bet it does. But providing for people after taking everything away from them doesn’t fucking count, asshole.”

Vulpes’ mouth showed a subtle sign of amusement.

“You do realize my hand is around your throat, right? I can stop your little rant at any point.”

“Were you born into all of this? Or snatched away as a kid? Would your parents say the same, about the Legion ‘providing’ for you?" Aleah spat. Vulpes' brow creased and his lip curled, and he bared his teeth angrily, inciting a deeper smile from Aleah. She must have hit the soft spot again and thought for a moment he would really choke her out. But the expression of indignation he showed became exaggerated to the point of looking comical and then it disappeared, all trace of it, when he chuckled airily once. Whatever believable rage she thought she saw was a joke, she realized, as he imparted her with a condescending pout that mimicked her own from earlier.

"You think no one has tried that before?" he asked, and Aleah's own sense of accomplishment opened the window and jumped right out. "My parents are dead. They cannot 'say' anything. Were they alive, their tribal beliefs wouldn't matter. The assimilation of our group was a generous gift from the Son of Mars. It's a wonder we weren't all slaughtered like the animals we lived as."

Yet again, Aleah was speechless. He let her go finally, and with a snap of the officer's fingers, the elderly woman accompanying him walked into the room and dumped the contents of the bag onto Aleah's bed, still not meeting her eyes. There was some maize, water and a single boiled gecko egg. She then handed Vulpes a strange looking collar like the one she sported and left the room as quiet as she'd entered. He snapped it onto Aleah with expert hands.

“Find yourself too far away from this building and me, and this collar will blow your body to pieces. Now eat. You'll need your energy, someone will return for you later."

Then she was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so not that much relief. Say what you feel though, no one will judge. You're protected by the Mark of Caesar, I promise.


	19. Breaking Bread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corinne comes to. At dinner, Inculta hatches a yet another plan.

**Vegas, September 3rd, evening**  
  
  
Corinne woke up to a blooming pain in her neck. She dreamt a radscorpion stung her repeatedly in her flesh, but as she regained consciousness, she realized reality was much worse: her neck was sore from being struck by the young Legion officer...  which meant she was still a captive. She was in a poorly lit food storage area with an old deep freezer and shelves all around. There was a can of Cram and a bottle of water, but otherwise the space was littered with empty tins. 

The space was too small. It made the air feel thick and sticky on her skin, which had a nice sheen of sweat on it. For dozens of minutes Corinne banged on the door, screaming herself hoarse until she slid down to the ground and hugged her knees, sobbing. It was hours before she touched the food, and another hour afterward she was jarred to attention as the entrance swung open. It was the same young officer, the one who'd struck her and twisted Aleah's shoulder.

"Where am I? Where’s Aleah? What time is it?" she pleaded, needing to know something. She hated not knowing.

Instead of gratifying her with an immediate response, the man took his time entering the room, standing idly in the spot she'd just scrambled away from. 

"Time is no longer important to you. You are a slave now, you have nothing but time," the man she remembered was named Cassius, informed her. "Your friend is far away from here and no longer your concern. As for you, you are in the basement of the Ultra Luxe, stored in the same place men and women were kept before they were slaughtered and roasted for a feast."

Corinne shrunk into herself, eyes bugged out. 

"Don't believe for a moment we're above doing the same to you. Think of some other ways you can be useful enough to avoid that fate."

Cassius left the room and slammed the door behind him, but instead of walking off, he listened for the resuming of sobs on the other side, this time with more fervor and smiled to himself. Of course the Legion would never resort to the same debased antics of the building's former inhabitants, but the degenerate woman didn't need to know that. What she needed was a healthy, steady dose of fear to remind her of her place, and Cassius was happy to administer it. In fact, he would be happy to do a lot more with her, but he knew at the moment she was off limits— due to her proximity to the woman Vulpes requested for himself, he assumed she was untouchable. As soon as she was deemed open-game, Cassius would be the first in line. He may even talk to Vulpes about her at dinner that evening; after all he kept hearing how much he distinguished himself. 

A reward was due.

 

**

 

Fruition was a glorious thing. For Vulpes Inculta, who currently sat at a dinner table among colleagues in a room with hundreds of soldiers, there were few instances where the reality of something lived up to the imagination. To his amazement, confronting Aleah had not only lived up to the prospect, it surpassed it. Her shock was no surprise, but he didn't know she'd feel so betrayed, which any added negative sentiment was a bonus. But then her trying to play with his head only to have her plan backfire was the cherry on top. He recalled the satisfactory buzz charging through his body at making a fool of her, and by Mars, her face. She was so pretty when she was dismayed.

Ever the schemer, Vulpes was positive his next plan would not disappoint; he strove to make the humiliation of his subjects as personalized as possible. But as he sat back in his chair with his hand under his chin, the mention of his name by a superior roused him from his thoughts of said plans, and he found Lucius making a toast to him.

"And to the illustrious Vulpes Inculta, who, without his infiltration work, we could not have possibly come so far," the head Praetor began, amid the animalistic snort of another important officer; the bull was a fitting emblem for the Legion indeed. "You are a dear friend and I admire you greatly."

Vulpes' eyes twinkled with genuine warmth, which admittedly was rare for him and he nodded once in acknowledgement to Lucius, whom he likewise admired. He believed it was his work combined with Lucius's expert grasp on strategy that brought them to victory. Then, his cool blue gaze settled on the humongous seated and masked form of the Legate Lanius, who he had to thank for the derisive snort earlier. Lanius had conveniently decided to return from his celebratory bender at the Fort shortly after word got out of how many lovely slave captures awaited claiming in New Vegas.

The two men, polar opposites and yet equally tenacious and dangerous, held one another's gaze for the remainder of Lucius's speech, with the Legate seething at how the human equivalent of a snake could be so lauded among true warriors, and Vulpes wondering how someone with the same level of tact and subtlety as a stick of dynamite made it to be second in line to the throne, not that he cared to take it from the current holder. Thankfully Caesar's health was no longer in decline.

"... and may Caesar's Legion continue to prosper under the watchful and capable eye of Mars!" Lucius finished with gusto, inciting roars from the hundreds of bodies filling the Ultra Luxe dining-room-turned-mess-hall, with the chorus acoustics vibrating off the walls. Not a moment after the rancor died, did the Legate slam down the metal cup from which he drank and flatware jittered across the surface like the utensils feared the beast. Every head turned at the sound, including Caesar who appeared to be fighting off a headache and now irritation. The Legate's voice was calm in contrast to his actions, and his eyes were still glued to the head Frumentarius. 

"Every creature has a purpose within nature," Lanius spoke in his most eloquent and pensive tone. "That, I do not dispute. But one does not place the same value on the contributions of a mole rat that one does on the contributions of a bull, yes?"

Despite having reason to feel insulted, Inculta smiled inwardly at the petty comparison, as it was hard to genuinely insult a man like Vulpes, especially over the same thing he always brought up. He knew that if anything, this was a compliment because it demonstrated the fact that Lanius felt threatened, and that meant Vulpes was good at what he did. It must be eventually addressed in some way however, so that the morale of his men did not falter and so other legionaries understood what it meant to respect their brethren. He might bring it up with their leader later, but for now, with an inhale, he let his "comrade" continue.

"We must give praise to those truly responsible for our grand success." _Who, you?_  Vulpes thought, but instead he resisted the grin tugging at his mouth corners. His size withstanding, men like Lanius were a cap a dozen: alpha males who despite being so close to the top, constantly were trying to prove something. Amid that, the Frumentarius knew better than to ever underestimate him, because having something to prove did not mean he was to be written off. Lanius finished in his low but admittedly articulate voice, "The men on the front lines, spilling the first blood. And the men holding down the fort, the last ones standing.  _My_ men."

At the last words, the Legate looked at the Frumentarius and made no effort to disguise distaste even though his mask technically did. It was interesting how a man with such little regard for the number of fatalities in his unit that it took to get the job done, suddenly had so much respect for his men and their accolades when Vulpes was receiving his own. Inculta could not resist smiling back at him but did not show his teeth. He nodded slightly and kept it at that. Pushing him too far wouldn't be wise since he needed the Legate's help with an upcoming leisure task.

Caesar, whose headaches were less frequent these days now that his tumor was removed, rolled his eyes at the outburst. The Courier had warned him that, even with the life-saving surgery, while he would live many years, it was possible with the trauma wrought by the surgery alone that he might still suffer the occasional migraine. In pain now, Caesar was entirely too tired for pissing contests, so he commanded the room with a simple wave of his hand. 

"Each and every man here is responsible for our recent victory," his even voice floated about the space. "Just the same, there is no one to 'thank' or 'praise.' Exacting the will of Mars requires many tools with different functions, and it is the mere fact that you were chosen by Mars to bear such a purpose in the first place that should be your praise."

Like a bunch of fighting children who were broken up, members of the various Legion 'factions' sat in silence and ruminated on his words, some even nodding in agreement. Lanius and Vulpes still had not broken eye contact, and now Vulpes was grinning wide and displaying his neat white teeth. Their leader rolled his eyes harder this time. 

"Now, everyone fucking eat," he said with more exasperation than he meant to, but it still inspired applause and cheers and shortly afterward, and thousands of teeth were tearing into coyote drumsticks, brahmin steaks, mutfruit and maize.

Vulpes didn't touch his food. Instead, he pushed back his chair and moved past Lucius to crouch to the side of their leader. 

"My Lord, if I may have a word?"

The older man set his cutlery down and regarded the younger one with a flat look. "If it's really worth interrupting my meal."

"I certainly think it will be."  

Caesar nodded. "Go on..."

"As you are well aware, I've recently made an acquisition," Vulpes began. "Part of my interest in her has to do with some particular talents she has, and I have been thinking—"

"Talents, hmm?"

"Yes, she is a... a performer, a dancer," he continued. Caesar grunted. "I think her talents could be put to use this evening as a way to keep up the high level of morale."

The ghost of a smile pulled on the mouth corners of Caesar's face.  "Or you think my men watching her would humiliate her beyond compare, as you so enjoy doing."

Vulpes smirked and quirked his eyebrows; his leader knew him too well.

"I've known you for years, Vulpes. I know how much you like to play with your food."

"And you also know that this is a mutually beneficial offer, with your blessing," he added. Caesar nodded and began cutting his steak. “But I would understand if you would find such a grand display of profligacy distasteful…”

Caesar’s shoulders rose indifferently.

“I see no harm in putting a woman to use entertaining a fine group of men who have worked hard.”

“Excellent,” Vulpes responded triumphantly. “I do want to keep attendance to senior officers, and I also want to show my gratitude for your generosity. Would you like to partake in the festivities?"

"If I am feeling well enough later. I've heard good things about her, Aleah isn't it?" the leader asked.

"Yes."

"Make the arrangements, then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;)


	20. Eye for an Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aleah makes a new friend and runs into an old one. Vulpes lectures his protege.

**Vegas, September 3rd, evening**   
  


When a weathered, downtrodden fair-skinned woman she hadn’t seen before came to Aleah's room, a couple hours after Mr. Fox left, Aleah knew something was very _wrong._  

Well, this whole situation was fucked to begin with but something else was up now. The woman would not meet her eyes, flouted her frenzied questions and was for all intents and purposes, a wall made of human flesh. It wasn't until Aleah grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a good shake that the woman finally looked her in the eye. Aleah expected the uproarious flames in her own eyes to be mirrored back, but the woman was frightened instead and cringed in the traditional manner of the regularly assailed.

            "I am sorry. I'm not going to hurt you, I just... I want to know where my... my friend is," Aleah expressed with a softened voice. It was faintly hollow too; she wasn’t proud of her actions but her need for answers burned something fierce. "Please. She's about this tall—" Aleah held up her hand a little lower than her own head, "and has blond hair and blue eyes. She's around my age."

The woman’s weary eyes clouded with puzzlement.

"I do not… understand the words.  _Latine_?" she finally choked out in a thick foreign accent that couldn’t be native Latin, because it sounded precisely like an accent Aleah last heard decades ago... She instantly recognized the language and an eerie nostalgia flooded her gut: it was the native tongue of her birth father. She saw a dark brown man in the sun whose crow’s feet crinkled fondly in her direction while he tilled the earth, but nothing else about his face came to mind. He vanished like the flame of a candle in the wind.

Jarred from the flashback, Aleah sucked in air unsteadily. There was a task at hand… _oh._

She mentally searched for the words to describe Corinne, hoping she recalled enough to communicate what she needed. Her family spoke only this language for the first few years of her life and when her father succumbed to the Wasteland in the way men just do, she and her mother hadn’t used it since.

"Uh... okay. Hmm. _Nom?"_  she began while pointing at her, and the woman's eyes sparked to life as she nodded and she gave her name: Minima. "Uh...  _Je cherche un_ — _une fille?"_

Clearly it had been a surprise to hear her native tongue spoken by Aleah as she mentioned her search for Corinne. Minima must have been from a real migrant family, Aleah thought. Few speakers of this language made it all the way to the Mojave. After a couple of seconds of skeptical staring, the woman confessed.

“ _Mon nom est Adelise.”_

Aleah blinked confusedly.

 _“Nom,”_ she pointed to herself, “Adelise.”

“Okay, Adelise…” Aleah smiled, wanting to say it was beautiful, but was struggling enough as it was. She understood literally what the woman said, but what was confusing was that she had given one name and then another. Maybe Legion women customarily went by two?

 _"La fille. Est-ce que vous pouvez elle decrire?"_ the woman asked, then judging by the look on Aleah's face, she asked again, slower this time and pointing to her hair, skin and eyes. 

Racking her brain for the colors her birth father taught her, Aleah pointed to her hair, saying "blonde" and to her eyes, saying _"bleu_ " and to her skin, saying _"creme."_ She tried to say she was young and petite. 

 _"Mais non... il y a beaucoup de filles ici comme ca,"_ Adelise said to herself. Her next words came out slow for Aleah to comprehend. _"A-t-elle des cicatrices ou taches qu'on peux identifier?"_  

A perplexed Aleah shook her head, trying to keep the tears gathering in her eyes from welling over. Gods, language barriers were the worst, and to have lost what she was so freshly reminded was such a critical part of her history—no less. _"Je ne comprend..."_

Adelise, being an empath, felt her heart sink at the newer woman's expression. This stranger was the first captive person in years to speak any bit of her native tongue. Slaves were only permitted to speak Latin unless they were assigned a duty that involved interacting with the caravans. There’d been traders and other men who’d found themselves aiding the Legion for their own reasons, but the first time she’d addressed one in earshot of some new Decanus, she was belted harshly for not speaking Latin and accused of planning an escape attempt, when all she’d asked the traveler was where he had come from. Now whenever she heard them speaking French, she eavesdropped with concentrated homesickness wrenching at her soul.

She grabbed Aleah's hands and held them. "The girl, she have... um, _marques? Comme..._ um, this?" She pointed to a tiny black mark on the dancer's arm. Aleah understood now, but could not think of any marks large enough to identify Corinne. 

"Non."

" _Et, sa nom?_ Name?" Adelise tried.

"Me, Aleah. _La fille_ , Corinne."

 _"Si j'ai trouve quelqu'un avec cet nom, je vous dit_. I find her, I you tell," Adelise promised. "Now, fast. _Il faut que.._. I bring you to clothes room, _tout de suite."_ She began corralling Aleah toward the door and she obliged glumly, not knowing what was next.

They walked through hallway after hallway and took stairs down to the ground level, the building familiar in layout but completely alien in spirit. Every corner they turned, Aleah half-expected to see Guy or some other cat in a suit. She even found herself looking for Gerry, a Chairmen of the rarer, kind breed, but instead of 3-piece suits and fedoras and winks or smirks, there were red skirts and fancy helmets and leering eyes and bared teeth whenever she made eye contact. She quickly learned why so many of the women averted their eyes. By the time they'd reached the lobby and Adelise directed her past the chips exchange, a lightbulb shown bright in Aleah's mind: they were going to the Aces theater. But it only generated more queries to answer.

Sure enough, minutes later they were in her old dressing room, with all the costume pieces and cosmetics left behind still in their places and the things she'd stowed away in her suitcase to flee with somehow perfectly reinstalled. It was creepy, like stepping into the snapshot of a memory. A chill crept from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes and she took a deep breath, then Aleah turned to Adelise and looked at her expectantly.

The woman began rifling through the sequined and bejeweled garments and passed Aleah's favorite blue dress to her, then Aleah's signature white feather boa. She pushed her toward the vanity. The dancer shook her head.

"I don't understand."

"You dress, you dance," Adelise informed her, looking for all the world like the messenger terrified of being shot.

 _"What?"_   Aleah hissed so severely that Adelise cringed again and her eyes flitted back down. This was going well for no one. "No, no no no! I'm not mad at you! I just..."

She couldn’t believe this shit. Aleah stood there wringing the dress in her hands for about thirty seconds, then sighed.

“I’m dancing tonight?”

_“Si.”_

The dress felt so familiar in her hands and Aleah felt another pang of nostalgia, then dread about the upcoming performance. She didn't dare ask again, there was no doubt in her mind who was behind this: Vulpes Inculta had arranged for another private show. He was determined to twist everything she knew and loved into a travesty, and so far he was quite good at it. But this time, since he liked his “prize” all to himself, she'd walk right up to him and stomp his foot no matter the consequence, so Gods help her. He wouldn't be able to hold his composure through that.

When the rage dissipated and her limbs stopped trembling, Aleah sat down and set to work putting on her face. On went foundation, eyeshadow, lashes and blush with Adelise seated nearby, and observing her with quiet fascination. The dancer was vaguely reminded of how Beatrix used to stare at her in the mirror and her stomach dropped.

Honestly, Beatrix was in a better place compared to this, she thought. She caught Adelise ogling as she applied the rouge to her full lips and smacked them and the woman turned away. To Adelise’s surprise, the little gold tube of rouge was thrust in her direction enthusiastically.

"Wanna give it a try?" Aleah offered. In the back of her head, she mulled over the consequences. Was it safe? Probably not, but hell... sometimes a little fun with makeup was needed. The other woman shook her head vehemently, obviously interested but too polite to do what she thought was intrusive. Aleah insisted with a gentle smile. "Please."

Adelise blinked a couple times. 

"I not know... how," she said. 

"Okay?" the dancer asked for her permission to proceed, and the woman nodded. She didn’t appear to be confident about the experiment. Amid that, Aleah began applying lipstick to the woman's face and shortly thereafter, her eyelids were lined with black eyeliner and her lashes plush with mascara. A few minutes and puffs of blush later, Adelise looked at her face in the mirror and gasped.

She had never seen herself look like this before; she looked a decade younger and like the fabulous woman on the billboard for the Ultra Luxe that she'd seen when she first came to Vegas bound in ropes. Adelise couldn't turn away from her reflection—and she had _never_ looked twice at herself unless it was to assess the damage of a bruise. 

 _"Trés jolie,"_ Aleah said. "With and without."

" _Merci._ "

Aleah's eyes looked back to herself in the mirror, taking in her own beauteous features. It would be great like old times if the giant, ugly blinking slave collar she wore weren’t both a stark reminder of her fate and cramping her style. Those Legion bastards didn’t deserve to exist on the same plane as her.

She took a few deep breaths, holding each in for about ten seconds and released, while Adelise looked on in silence. Butterflies raged in her belly and it was when she figured they were there to stay that she stood, letting the kind woman help her into her dress when she felt faint. She zipped her up and Aleah pulled on her gloves, not bothering with the bird’s nest that was her hair; it was just a mass of coils she didn’t have time to comb since her depart from the Wrangler. She threw a feather up there and decided it was good enough.

There was a timid knock on the door that occurred to Aleah as very ironic at this point, considering how many people would just burst in before all of this. A venom-laced laugh trickled from the now-again-performer and she invited the caller within. The last person she ever expected to do so limped into the room: Tommy Torini.

He'd gone missing a month or so before the Legion took over but astonishingly enough was here in the flesh now, so it must have been Legion people that abducted him too. Aleah took in his reflection in the vanity, too awed and embittered to turn around and face him. In the low light of the room she couldn’t really make out his face from afar but knew his silhouette well enough. He wore a suit, his hair had been recently conked, and there was a drink in his hand, but something was missing... the eye patch.

"Well I'll be damned... Tommy fucking Torini."

He smiled weakly, his voice confirming it was really him.

"Nice to see a familiar face?" he asked, hopefully. As much as she wanted to claw the good eye out in the past, Aleah could tell he'd been cut to the quick somehow— and had little interest in kicking a man when he was down no matter what he did (with one outstanding exception of course).

"Yeah... I guess," she said, putting on her earrings as she turned to regard him directly. Once she was done, she gave him a good once over and subsequently a look of shock and concern when she saw how humbled he now appeared. Tommy hadn’t just been made to eat crow, the hardy and slick-talking talent manager everyone knew and few loved had been gutted out of him and some impostor-like husk was standing before her. He wouldn’t even meet her eyes. His remaining eye had bruising around it and the bad one, well... apparently his modesty was stripped as punishment at some point, as there was no patch, just the gnarly remains of an eyelid and a scar that looked unusually fresh. She'd always thought he wore the cover to be stylish, but apparently something was actually missing.

"What did they _do_ to you?"

Suddenly the snifter in his hand was very interesting to him.

"Tommy, talk to me. _Please._ " _You owe me that,_  she wanted to say, but kept her lips tight. That would only salt the wound. He knew it, too.

" _Theytookit_ ," he mumbled almost incoherently.

Adelise, who’d slinked away to cower somewhere nearby, recognized the quality of a person that had been recently broken in his tone and softened a bit to his presence. Aleah asked him to repeat himself and after several moments, he spoke up.

"They took it. My eye. They took my eye from me."

Aleah had to bring her jaw back up with her hand. Her mouth tasted sour, and Adelise looked at her with concern, unable to understand what he said. The dancer closed the distance between herself and Torini and with his unspoken consent, inspected his face further. It was the first time anyone touched him with the slightest hint of kindness in weeks. Instinctively he flinched when her fingers brushed lightly against skin inches away from the site of cruelty.

The dancer studied the wound. It was sewn tight and seemed to be clean and healing well at least... but they took his eye! 

"Who did this?" she asked quietly. Tommy shrugged tiredly.

"Who do you think?" 

She swallowed to keep her stomach from flopping. It didn’t work.

"I always wore the patch to look like a cool cat," he began, laughing to himself. "You know—Couple months back, I set up this meeting to broker a deal between him and Swank for the casino, but, figuring I was some sort of smooth talker, I decided not to actually let Swank in on it. Fox showed up to the meeting spot and said he had no more interest in the joint because you weren’t there _._ So I laid into you real hard, Aleah. I was mad, I wanted to turn him off to the thought of you, and I came up with the nastiest lies I could think of to ruin your character. I was awful. The things I said, they made the gals at the Gomorrah sound like saints.”

Tommy shook his head, pausing to swallow.

“Anyway, I must’ve pissed him off with all of that. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look bothered. But then he said he wanted to play a game of caravan. Half way through, he asks me about the patch I wear so I give 'em the usual story: the lie about the knife fight with two guys twice my size that I win, but lose the eye." 

Torini’s expression became mangled with sadness. 

"I didn't think he'd actually call my bluff. He was on me lightnin' fast, baby, then there was just... pain. And blood. So much blood."

"Gods. Tommy, I... I'm so sorry," Aleah confessed, and meant it. She felt like in a way, she brought this down on him, on everyone, what with being the object in Vulpes' path. Torini took her hands into his and squeezed them. This was the second time someone held her like this today she dimly realized; captives only had each other for support and barely that.

"No, sweets. _I'm_  sorry. I was nothing but a dog to you."

With that, any trace of ill will she harbored toward her former employer vanished; he paid enough of a price. He held onto her for a minute, not in any romantic way, but more like she were an anchor. They were equally stranded, and he could hear the waves crashing around them both but at least her head was above the water still. Not for much longer, though.

"I'm supposed to tell you there's ten minutes to curtains, but I guess I've been here awhile so it's probably five now," he mumbled after awhile. Aleah took in a lungful of air and put on a smile she hoped would reassure them both. It didn’t. "You don't want to keep a man like that waiting."

"I'm ready," the dancer said, then gently let him go.

“This is also for you, à la You Know Who.” He shoved the glass toward her.

Aleah tentatively lifted the glass to her nose, picking up the familiar scent of soda and what smelled like copious amounts of alcohol. She could definitely use it for her nerves but wondered if it were laced. Then she thought about it and realized if he were going to slip her something, she would consider it an act of kindness and take the free nap. She took a sip of the Sunset Vodka-parilla and aside from it being doubly, maybe triply strong, nothing tasted out of the ordinary. The drink was gone in under a minute, leaving her belly warm.”

"Alright, kid," the talent manager announced, perched at the door. “Time to go.”

"One more thing," Aleah chirped, setting the glass down. She ruffled through her vanity then faced Adelise and placed a handkerchief into the kind woman's worn hands, pantomiming wiping her face. "Before you leave. Please."

She hoped Adelise would understand; sending her back into the fold with makeup on would be like tossing a bone into a room of coyotes and she didn't want to feel any more responsibility over the pain of others. Adelise answered her with a sad smile and began smearing away her work.

Aleah and Torini left her behind and made for the stage.

 

**

 

Dinner at the mess was concluded, and crowds of hardened bodies decorated in red trickled out of the room and back to their respective new homes. Among them was Vulpes, who stood off to the side of the dining area speaking with a young man of about fourteen years that was a messenger. He left the adolescent with specific instructions to give to several senior officers and other decorated heroes, then expressed that he wanted him to send Cassius to his suite directly after he delivered all of the invitations. The boy skipped off with lots of youthful energy while Inculta made for the Tops.

Once inside the casino, he looked around, still acclimating to the lack of gamblers. He didn't care in the least for them nor their avaricious habits, but it would take some time before he could walk through the door and not constantly switch to mission mode, as was his custom over so many months. Vulpes took a short tour of the ground level and found himself at the Aces and his body buzzed with anticipation. He paced in the theatre, finding all the tables riddled with half empty bottles and cigarette butts and fought down his somehow still growing disgust for slobs of New Vegas; the Legion coming to this place truly was a gift. Refusing to clean up the messes of others, Vulpes summoned a slave to help make the space more presentable for the production later on.

The slave, a woman aptly named Minima, was one of many who were moved from the Fort and now inhabited the slave camps set up along the Strip and Freeside. Vulpes picked up that she isolated herself and interacted regularly only with a couple other slaves with whom she used her birth name Adelise, which knowing its Latin root meaning, he found it quite amusing considering her current stature.

Once she brought the theater to a somewhat acceptable state, Vulpes sent her off to fetch and prepare Aleah for him, while he took on the careful task of restoring the dancer’s dressing room to its former glory, if one could call it that. It took only ten minutes of his time, and not a lipstick tube was out of place; it was days like this that he truly appreciated his eidetic memory, as it could cause a stunning effect.

Invitations, check. Preparation of the venue, check. Call for the performer and the other ace he had in his deck: the manager, check. All that was left was to wait. Waiting was usually more tolerable; then again, his plans generally weren’t so personal.

Some minutes after sending Minima off, the head of the Frumentarii was back in his suite awaiting one of his agents. When the small intercom crackled to life and Cassius inquired, Vulpes buzzed him up without a word.

"You wanted to see me?" the soldier began, barely off the elevator before speaking. He looked... not winded, because Legionaries were trained to their peak of course, but like he had rushed over, which was good. At least he seemed concerned about his status. Inculta stood near him but didn’t move closer.

"I am told there was an altercation involving an unnecessary use of force between you and the woman I requested you bring here," Vulpes answered him. "I would like to hear your side of the story."

Cassius blinked a few times, debating whether to give full disclosure of him getting a little too enthusiastic or play it cool, then remembered exactly who he was talking to and knew that honesty was the best route to take. 

 _"Mea Culpa._ I... I am still processing my elevated excitement from battle, and I am eager to impress you. In trying to do so, I handled her quite roughly, putting her into a shoulder lock," Cassius confessed, then rambled, trying to defend himself. "With one of our own, this would be no issue, since we are prepared to take physical stress... but she is a proflig— ah... she is not trained like us. I acted impulsively, and didn't know the meaning she held for you. I apologize."

Cassius then recognized the stare Vulpes had become known for; it was both devoid of sentiment and deathly intense, not unlike a tri-beam laser. With chills running down his neck he vowed that, if he made it out alive, he’d never do anything else to earn the honor of being a recipient again. Some seconds later, when Cassius thought the skin of his face might have been melted away, Inculta finally spoke with carefully chosen words.

"Your tactlessness is displeasing… but at least you know well enough to admit your faults, which is more than many men are able to say," the leader replied. "I see little reason to punish you since there's no permanent damage.”

The glare was punishment enough. Still, the leader continued.

“But know this: should you harm her again in the future, I will take from you double the pound of flesh. Am I clear?"

The thought of it being a possibility, that Vulpes would hurt a Legion recruit over a dissolute woman stung Cassius like a fresh slap. This woman and her influence were more serious than he thought. The younger man met his eyes and found steel there, nodded and looked down.

A recruit holding his tongue in the face of a reprimanding was a step toward competence, Vulpes thought, though it didn’t warrant outward acknowledgement. But he could read the signs of the young man’s perceived betrayal from a mile away; it was a classic symptom of less evolved legionaries to place such little value on the physical wellbeing of slaves. When they mistreated them unnecessarily, they often thought there would be no repercussions, and usually there weren’t any, especially for crimes committed against the unclaimed. When they found that in some cases there were consequences, they tended to take it personally.

“It is not a matter of her being a captive or a profligate,” he pointed out aloud, for clarification. “It’s a matter of her being the property of another and a senior officer in particular, as she is to be my personal slave. A man’s estate is an extension of him. So if you cause harm against what is his…”

“I understand, sir.”

It took a bit for Cassius to let that settle and his superior allowed him the time. When he looked back up after a few moments of silence, he found Inculta smiling subtly, but his eyes shimmering with genuine mirth.

"How would you like to see a special display this evening?" he offered, now fully grinning in thought of tonight. Cassius would have accepted anyway out of sheer curiosity, but this was the first time he'd ever seen Vulpes Inculta smile in such a way... or whatever it was he was doing. He was handsome when he did but the smile, which should have been a reassuring gesture, was so unsettling like everything else about him, and it made the young man's stomach drop for some reason. Cassius would be alarmed if that smile were meant for him personally.

"Sir?"

"The woman you returned, Aleah—she was a Vegas entertainer and I am employing her talents this evening. I've invited a select few men to come and since you were instrumental in getting her here, you are welcome to join... or decline, should you wish," Vulpes added, dialing the wattage down on his visible excitement and smirking once more instead. "If you attend, you will understand why you were made to cross the Mojave in search of her."

Inculta wishing to express appreciation for his help was always a good sign, in his book. And he was curious about the talents… He simply couldn't turn down the opportunity, so Cassius matched his smile with a bigger one. 

"I would be honored to attend."

"Excellent. What is the status of her lover?"

"Uh... she is fine; still in the basement of the Ultra Luxe, restless and generally terrified but still lucid," Cassius reported; that reminded him... “What are your plans for her?”

Vulpes' face fell neutral with deep contemplation. He walked across the vestibule of his suite and sat in a chair, indicating the young Frumentarius should follow. Cassius dumped his body onto a sofa.

Inculta would offer Corinne to Alerio first, had he not discovered some time ago that the agent had particular tastes she would not be able to satisfy. Then, he'd honestly debated tossing her to Lanius so he could delight in Aleah's misery upon understanding it was a death sentence. But truthfully he wasn’t thrilled by the thought of needlessly killing women when they had so many practical uses— nor was he thrilled about rewarding the Legate. Also, something like that might fracture Aleah’s psyche, and he while he certainly wished to hurt her, to do so to that degree wasn’t exactly his objective. So it would be better to make Corinne a general slave or the wife of someone less destructive and keep her alive as leverage. Maybe it would torment Aleah just enough to watch her lover alongside her suffering a similar fate. He didn't share any of this yet with his comrade.

“I have yet to decide, honestly," was all he said. Cassius appeared to want to say something but deliberated internally still. "Did you have a suggestion?"

"Well... I was hoping to take on a personal slave myself."

Vulpes held in a laugh. The Legionary was barely a soldier and not yet a man by his standards, and he wanted a slave. Typical.

"No," was his automatic bark of a reply. Cassius sat there trying his best not to look crushed, obviously trying to recall and use his training on avoiding displays of vulnerability in a way that made Vulpes want to laugh again, but he didn’t. Cassius cleared his throat and nodded, getting ready to leave when he was stopped.

"You were not dismissed," Vulpes began, ready to explain his reasons as lightly as he could manage. "Cassius, it is not my personal opinion, but the system here. Aside from Alerio, there are five other men in line before you in this unit who would be entitled to such a reward — that is assuming men in other divisions are not worth my consideration. And a personal slave is a great responsibility. I am only now just taking on my first and I am fourth in line to the throne. Breaking them in, training them, clothing and feeding them and assuring their longevity with proper medical care, is all on you. If you were to produce an heir at your age, that responsibility would triple."

Cassius shrugged. "One must try, right?"

What a funny young man, if sometimes unintentionally so.

"Maybe after one has achieved a few more merits to speak of, but your boldness is ingratiating,” Vulpes admitted. “I shall see you later this evening." 

Cassius made a hasty exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with my self indulgent trash fic. I promise things will get more interesting soon!


	21. Showtime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aleah gives the Legion their denarius' worth.

**Vegas, September 3rd, dusk**  
  
  
For a woman of the Wasteland falling under any number of persecuted identities, Aleah’s confidence was quite abundant.

Sure, her first ever recital was nerve-wracking, and the then twelve-year-old dancer shuddered violently behind the curtains awaiting her cue. Then each time afterward, being on stage felt like being at home, but not the home she grew up in, no—the good kind of home where everyone loves you and actually wants you to succeed. Her first time on stage as a burlesque performer she expected to be on edge, but it was no trouble at all: amid constant indication that she should feel otherwise, the dancer was rarely shy about her generous rolls and belly and weighty, drooping breasts, and the only reason she wouldn't want to take her glitzy garments off was because they were so much fun to wear. 

Now twenty-something and no longer the tense adolescent, it was strange that the tremors of her youth resurfaced. The performer stood backstage, briefly considering peeking out to see if Fox was front row this time, alone and reveling in his organized stinginess. Would he be wearing that ridiculous hat again? Or his gambler suit for memory’s sake? She couldn't resist her curious nature, so Aleah went to the edge and peered out from the wing, taking care not to draw attention, and her stomach plummeted through her intestines and landed atop her bedazzled dancing shoes.

The entire theater was full. There was a body in every available seat, and they nearly all wore variations of officer's regalia and stony, unamused expressions as they chatted with one another and awaited the tiny production’s start. She even recognized the asshole who twisted her shoulder (which still ached by the way) looking impatient and the other man that was from the abduction crew, static and expressionless like a marble statue… and front row and just off the center was Mr. Fo— actually  _Vulpes Inculta_ , sans canine helmet and the main one looking tickled pink.

It seemed settled: tonight that confidence was in short supply. She trembled. She wasn't sure how the other Legionaries would react to her body; would they think her curves were a novelty and marvel at her? Or would they think she was a gluttonous "profligate" whore who was an abomination similar to a mutant (not that she thought mutants were such a thing)? She wasn't sure which was worse, since the former certainly threatened her physical and sexual safety and the latter... hurt her pride, if she were being real. She hated when people assumed the worst about her for something she could not help, nor should she have to if she could. 

Truth was, like any of her Vegas audiences, it would be a mix of reactions. It was just that her Vegas audiences didn't carry throwing spears and machetes and they were less likely to rape women at will, but only slightly less. Either way, she wouldn’t be marching up to him and stomping his foot like she loosely planned. Gods, that drink the bastard sent her backstage had better kick in soon.

"You got this, kid," Torini said. He was literally in her corner, squeezing her shoulder to comfort her. 

"I'd believe you if you would tell me what I am actually doing," she offered dryly. Per Fox or Inculta or whatever the hell his name was' strict orders, she was to be thrown on stage with a random song and made to improvise. Luckily she was experienced enough to be able to do so, but this was obviously a special case. _"Hey, why don'tcha go onstage and freestyle in front of a buncha murderin' psychos?"_ she imagined aloud in Benny's sassy voice for some reason, then chuckled. 

Torini just grimaced. 

"You know I can't do that," he reminded her, then he went to the central opening of the curtains, preparing to pull them apart. He was due to go on first, since he himself was coerced into hosting and dancing as well to fluff up the show. They were the only two entertainers left in Vegas, maybe the only two stupid and unlucky enough to get caught at the center of some asshole’s plans.

As he stepped through the drapes, Torini’s voice took on a new timbre and he sounded like the Old Tommy she knew and... well, not "loved" but definitely respected as a fellow performer before he loaned her caps with a fifty-five percent hike in interest and threatened to pimp her out. He introduced himself and there was no applause. 

Within moments, Torini's music encompassed the theater and the poor thing tapped for an audience that had no interest in him. It was rare, but Aleah knew the feeling. To go out and put yourself on display for a crowd that actively refused to participate or didn't want to see you do your best was worse than forgetting your steps or tripping, because even if you nailed it, it wouldn't mean a thing. And it didn't for Tommy Torini, he was just a dancing monkey whose inability to impress the Legion was Inculta's private punch line. Aleah would have felt more pity were she not up next; she had little to spare.

She could hear him now, giving her a big announcement, calling her a renowned performer throughout Nevada. It was quite possibly the grandest introduction he'd ever given her, which she took to heart, but too bad it was wasted here. At least his act gave the alcohol some time to enter her bloodstream, since she was now feeling a pleasant buzz.

"Well, time to give 'em hell," she whispered to herself, then strode on stage in the dark and posed with her back to the audience, pausing for the lights and music to come up. Her wide silhouette was illuminated by the spotlight, making her sequined and beaded strapless mermaid-esque gown with leg slits shimmer like turquoise shards of glass that contrasted beautifully against her deep brown skin. She then looked over her shoulder and graced the audience with a glorious grin, making unabashed eye contact with all of the men in the front row, even the horrifying giant beast of a man with a strange mask who somehow, while still wearing it, matched her intensity and responded with his own curiosity. These were not the same expressions that met Tommy Torini... they were paying attention much more actively now.

Finally she settled on the one who started it all, the bane of her existence and her merciless scourge Vulpes, and Aleah raised her chin in defiance, her smirk becoming scornful. He quirked his eyebrows and delivered a saucy wink in response which might have thrilled her were she not pissed to high hell. She fought a scoff but her eyes lasered "FUCK YOU" into the skin on his forehead in her imagination.

Sooner or later the music would begin, emitting a swanky bass line accompanied by the jazzy snapping of fingers as mid-tempo rhythm. She recognized the classic and alcohol-enhanced relief washed over her glittering, curved body; Aleah the Eight would make her debut to the Legion her most stalwart performance yet because _fuck 'em_ , that's why.

She popped her hip out on each beat of the first two four counts. A husky woman's voice emitted over the bass line. Aleah wiggled her hips playfully, then turned to look back over her other shoulder.

_"Never know how much I love you..."_

She wiggled from the other side now and waggled her eyebrows.

_"Never know how much I care..."_

She pushed out her bum and crossed her arms in front and slid them to hold the opposite hip in each hand, hugging herself tight from behind.

_"When you put your arms around me..."_

Aleah planted her feet wide and dipped her hips low, rolling them sultrily and pushing her bum out again.

_"I get a fever that's so hard to bear. You give me fever!"_

            Then in an instant, she whipped around to face the audience and landed a pose perfectly on the next beat. Immediately, she picked up on about a dozen different reactions. She noticed a few of the legionaries leaned back in surprise at her sudden movement. Their faces conveyed a mixture of fascination and disgust— whether at the idea of stripping itself or her in particular she did not know. But still they all looked aroused. Some masked it poorly, like the dark-haired older "gentleman" with the beard who pretended to be offended, and others leered suggestively without pretense, like the intimidating masked beast a few seats over from Vulpes, his hand dangling dangerously close to his crotch as he sat wide-legged. The oldest man front and center looked impressed strangely enough, and Vulpes… seemed almost proud of her. None of them clapped or hooted or hollered, not even the illustrious Courier sitting to Inculta’s left, a man quite familiar with customs of cheering during the strip-o-ramas of Vegas.

_"... when you kiss me, fever when you hold me tight. Fever!"_

She brought her finger to her lips and bit it playfully, then traced down her chin to her throat, and down her throat to over the slave collar to her clavicles and lower to her line of cleavage, then cheekily pushed her breasts up on the next beat. 

_"In the morning, fever all through the night..."_

Aleah hugged herself and leaned forward, making her bosom bulge outward. Next she swung part of her boa in the air like a lasso, slid the length of it down her body, then closed her knees around it as much as she could in the tight gown and pulled it up and through her legs. That really got them going. She might have hated his guts, but being able to tease Inculta and the others so easily and mercilessly, to have such a powerful group wrapped around her dainty finger, turned Aleah on. She got a thrill from being on display in general, but the liquor she’d drank inspired real arousal and it oozed from her act.

As the singer's velvety voice sustained note after note, Aleah walked to the edge of the stage, balled up her boa dramatically and pitched it at no one in particular, but then— and more gracefully than she expected someone of his size to be able to— the Masked Beast reached out and caught it with a single, humongous hand before it could land near Vulpes, his dark eyes staring studiously at her from beneath the slits of the mask while she backed away. Aleah looked to Vulpes who sat there unresponsive to the jab, his own facial features infinitesimally tighter. And oh did it light Aleah up, seeing him pretend not to be pissed at being snubbed so smoothly.

She knew how to play the rest of the act now as the music went up in key: it was time to turn up the heat on everyone except "Mr. Fox." One silky smooth glove was peeled off, each finger pricked up first, and she tossed it right into the lap of the man front and center with the white hair. She pointed to all of them with the other satin glove, glaring mischievously, and with a smile suddenly smacked her ass hard, creating a ripple for them to see even through the gown. She pulled the remaining glove off with her teeth and tossed it to an angry-looking pale man with a grand helmet that blocked the view of someone behind him, their figure leaning around him to peer onward excitedly. Helmet Man, she named him in her head, looked quite hostile and was offended to have been chosen for her attention, which was more amusing than anything in her intoxicated state.

            Face front to the crowd, Aleah fumbled behind her back trying to get the dress's zipper down. It seemed to be caught on her undergarment, and she struggled with it for only a few more seconds than she should have, but could still play it off. Finally the dress was loose enough to be removed, so she inched it down achingly slowly. In New Vegas, pre-Legion takeover, she'd have cupped her ear, waited and made the audience work for it by cheering, but she knew no such thing would happen tonight, so she slid the dress down half way, then turned around and bent over at the waist while she shrugged the rest of it to the floor. She sported her fishnet stockings whose elastic tops emphasized the size of her rounded, full bottom and a thong with beaded fringe dangling and she shook, making her cheeks jiggle salaciously.

When she stood and stepped out of the dress, walking and swaying her hips until she was center stage again, Aleah pointed to her strapless brassiere, gliding her hands down her chest and over her round belly and landing them just over her crotch. Clutching her soft thigh with the left hand, with the right she drew a circle around the triangle front of her rhinestoned thong, luridly pantomiming pleasuring herself just as the singer crooned the line _"fever 'til you sizzle!"_ She made eye contact with Vulpes, then looked over to the Masked Beast, pointed to him with her left hand and winked just before she 'came' and threw her head back. When she looked out to the crowd, she didn't have to fake the little chuckle she added; Vulpes' thinly concealed rage was genuinely hilarious. Apparently something about the Masked Beast in particular really ticked him off and it served him right. She wanted his crafts to backfire.

At the climax of her routine, it was Aleah who snubbed them all. Deft brown fingers unfastened her bra and the flaps came down, but she still held its shape to her body. Then she covered her breasts with her arm, lifting the garment and twisting it for them to see, and teasingly juggled her breasts a bit with her forearm. Aleah tossed the bra just to the end of the stage so that no one could have it unless he wanted to be known forever in Legion history as the idiot who ran up to the stage to claim a profligate's underthings. They all looked hungry though, even Bearded Gent and Helmet Man; some had even shifted to edge of their seats. Others shifted to hide the evidence of her effect.

There was a moment when they all believed they'd be granted the honor of seeing her hefty breasts in their full glory, but Aleah shook her head. Instead she winked and strode off, still holding them and switching her hips in time to the music and disappearing backstage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Atta girl, Aleah! Show 'em who's boss!
> 
>  
> 
> Most of the Legionaries you will likely guess, but "Helmet Man" was Aurelius of Phoenix.


	22. Consumption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: the following chapter has a graphic depiction of sexual assault.

**Vegas, September 3rd, dusk**

  
  
Just as she made it behind the curtains, Tommy Torini greeted Aleah with a robe, helping her find the arm holes. He looked properly blown away.

"I gotta say hun, that was your sauciest round yet."

"Might as well right?" Aleah asked, a lopsided grin adorning her features. The dancer was beginning to feel the after effects of the adrenaline spike and was also tipsy, with stuttering breaths. She wobbled and he steadied her.

"’Might as well?’ You killed it out there! I know I took you for granted, but I always knew you were a true showstopper."

She giggled hysterically and tried to take a step. It was successful, but not as stable as it should be. 

"Gimme a sec," he said, then ran onto the stage to awkwardly conclude the 'show.' In a minute, he was back, examining Aleah who he found trembling and clinging to a support beam like a life raft.

"Let me help, I'm supposed to bring you back to the dressing room anyway," he claimed, his voice dropping. "He gave the order."

While Torini guided the dancer down the hallway, she felt like she was on death row, walking to the electric chair and set to fry any minute. Torini had Aleah around the waist with one arm and thrust out his other hand to push open the door to the dressing room. As they entered, Vulpes Inculta was already there apparently, leaning against the vanity surface with his legs crossed and regarding them with an unreadable expression, but the lines in his face were hard.

"Leave us," he commanded. Tommy exited without another word.

All of her emotions were coming to the surface, so she was unabashedly pissed about everything: the stalking, the manipulation, the abduction, the lack of information of Corinne’s whereabouts, Tommy’s eye, Beatrix’s slaughter, every bit of it. Still buzzed from adrenaline, vodka and a fresh dose of "fuck you," Aleah watched him smugly.

"Are you here to tell me that was quite a performance?”

The Frumentarius didn’t speak. Instead he continued staring at her, his impersonal expression boring into her harshly.

“What? Nothing to say for once, you bastard?”

“Do you even know the meaning of the insults you use?” Vulpes scoffed.

“I know this: you’re a piece of _shit._ ”

“I will teach you the consequences for when you don’t address me with respect,” the Frumentarius promised evenly.

“Oh yeah?” Aleah jeered, taunting him now. What did she have to lose? “Gonna teach me a lesson, you small man? I bet your buddy out there in the mask would do a better job!”

Inculta stood up straight, crossing the room in two strides and grabbing Aleah by the forearms she raised to block him.

“Let go of me!” Aleah struggled against him, refusing to go quietly this time. She let him have his way without a fight too many times before, whether it felt right or she had a proverbial gun to her head, it didn’t matter. And the times she did fight were because she knew she should, but since the list of atrocities piled up, now she wanted to. She had to stop handing him his victories neatly wrapped with a bow.

The dancer was stronger than she looked but the Legion-hardened Vulpes was stronger; it took mild effort for him to wrestle her over to the vanity, their legs tangling with each other. Her arms flew at him in frenzy and she released a rancorous scream in his direction. The spy could deflect her flying fists with ease, perhaps even with grace, and this amused him so his blood flow quickened, shooting straight to his loins. He ended her vain struggle by clutching the part of Aleah’s neck not already enclosed by the explosive collar with his two hands and squeezing.

The air in her throat scraped against her vocal chords hoarsely and the sound made his cock jump. Her eyes bugged bigger than they had ever before. Fascinated, the spy leaned closer to his prize and counted to twenty in his head. Aleah could see spots of black swirling dangerously in her vision, then it blurred entirely. It wasn’t a long amount of time but with the struggle that just ensued and the resulting panic, he knew she wasn’t using her oxygen efficiently. Eventually Vulpes released her to restore the airflow.

The dancer frantically took in a lungful of air and coughed hard, dry sobbing. Vulpes wished to smell the fear on her skin and he leaned in close to her, pressing his nose against the curls atop of her head with something that might have appeared to be affection to the untrained eye. With closed eyes, he breathed deeply and how invigorating her scent was would alarm him later once he was calm, but for now he let himself feel it. He was so excited that he wasn’t thinking clearly or acting efficiently himself now, otherwise he would have seen Aleah’s eyes go wild and sensed her coiling to spring.

Her forehead connected with his jaw in a nasty head butt, forcing Vulpes’ teeth into the flesh of his tongue. The resulting impact left her ears ringing and it would leave her with a nasty headache in the morning but it was well worth it. The shock of having been struck made Vulpes recoil more than anything; he brought his hand up to his mouth. To her credit, she genuinely caught him off guard but he would never allow it to happen again. Aleah, also frozen with disbelief that she’d actually gotten a lick in, watched his hand pull bright red away from his lip. The sheer amount of rage in his eyes when they met hers should have rightfully disintegrated her into a pile of ash.

Vulpes’ hand moved faster than Aleah could see. It wasn’t until the back of it collided with her cheek, exploding vivid lights across her field of vision, that she even realized he’d moved. She shrieked from the impact and her shoulders followed. Consumed by pain, she couldn’t fight him when he swept the contents of her vanity to the floor, tore away her robe, turned her around and bent her over the surface and ripped her panties from her body. Dimly, Aleah could hear the loose beads of the fringe trim stampeding against the floor; the sound reminded her of rain.

Her face was positioned right before the mirror. In it, she found the reflection of Vulpes staring back at her intensely and fumbling with his tunic below her eye level. She knew he was freeing himself and her suspicions were confirmed when she felt him guide the warm, thick head of his shaft to her entrance and ram into her with no attempt to ready her. She gotten a bit wet during her performance but still it was not enough, and she did not anticipate him to be so _big_. He met resistance and greeted it warmly with another forceful buck of his hips. And another.

Each time, a desperate, wordless cry escaped her lips. Vulpes pushed further in, spurred on by the discovery of her wetness, realizing she’d been aroused the whole time while on display to so many men. The vanity surface, old as it was, was sturdy enough that it offered no give, and Aleah had to take the full brunt of each cruel thrust with a mewl, a yelp, another scream, though she did not beg. They built in frequency and brutality and sent waves of almost seismic energy through her body. He took care not to let her tight, slick walls clenching him drive him over the edge too soon.

This wasn’t the way he planned his initial claiming of Aleah’s body, but after those comments, and ESPECIALLY after she struck him, her captor’s only intent tonight was to assert his total dominion over her. She wailed loud but didn’t struggle much; still Vulpes held her down with his left elbow digging into her back and his right hand covering her mouth to muffle her cries while his hips led the assault on her body. He glowered at her through the mirror while he fucked her, features unhinged by fury. Then he lifted his leg up and pushed his knee against the vanity edge, his position allowing him to drill her deeper.

            Her stifled squeaks rose in pitch as he shoved his length as deep into Aleah as he could manage, and after awhile the soft feminine noises drove him to a violent climax that rippled from him through her. She could feel his thick, veiny cock contract and release his seed deep into her channel, and she groaned in defeat. Vulpes ground his teeth and grunted as he finished; he resisted the temptation to collapse atop her. Finally, when he’d drained all of himself into Aleah, he pulled away and stood upright, reorganizing his tunic.

Resorting to the usual cold, unfeeling composure, Vulpes was the first and last to speak.

“Your collar is still active and you’re on a short leash. I suggest you gather yourself and follow me.”

He left without another word and Aleah the Eight, broken into a dozen pieces, sobbed for a few minutes, feeling lower than she thought possible. After some time, her collar chirped in warning, and with as much haste as she could muster, she limped after him in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is awful, I know. I don't intend to write many more scenes this dark, but I didn't want to romanticize or make light of the first time they are together physically, if that makes sense. This is not a happy story with all healthy characters; malicious intent was implied from the start.
> 
> Also, this may be the last update for a few weeks. I'm going through... everything right now and I'm emotionally drained, and not ahead like I was. I need some time to get back into writing.


	23. Descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Vulpes and Aleah experience the emotional aftermath of their 'union.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've started to add rudimentary time stamps so that readers have a general timeline but I suck at that kind of thing unless I do it from the start. This story is still a purely indulgent one, but I find it hard to indulge without SOME sort of structure and plot.

**Vegas, September 4th, morning  
**

 

Among many other things, Vulpes Inculta had a way with words. Anyone who spent time in his presence would say so, even if he’d had nothing to say, as the lack of speech was just as effective of a tool. There wasn’t much free time for officers in the Legion, but before they shifted all available resources to Hoover Dam preparations, he was astoundingly well read for a Wastelander, let alone a soldier and even wrote in his own time. Detailed accounts of missions, other official faction documents and the occasional work of poetry or prose here and there could be found among his records, all by his hand. But still, he could not find the words to express what finally uniting with Aleah did to him both physiologically and psychologically, so he was resolved that right now, they didn’t exist.

Vulpes just knew he was changed somehow and significantly so. The afterglow of release she brought gave him a sense of emotional clarity the likes of which he had never known, but it was due to fade and the fog he never knew he existed scurried to take back its place. The violent culmination of months of anticipation last night also left him more physically drained than he expected, even though he was in peak physical condition. On top of that, he recalled how he’d lost control in his excitement and that wouldn’t do anymore.

During some clerical work this morning, after he left Aleah in her room in the care of another slave, he tried to focus on the great backlog of Frumentarii paperwork he shirked in favor of organizing and attending the burlesque show. There were lots of plans to perfect for the infiltration of Shady Sands’s NCR presence and eventually their intended expansion beyond that. Caesar had yet to make an official decision to move north to Vault City or westward to the Hub with their current reserves, or take some time off to regroup.

Aleah's memory was a bladed boomerang, coming back every few minutes to slice his already failing focus in half: her smile and sultry presence onstage, her hips rolling, her pleas and general terror backstage, the feel of her incredibly soft rump smacking against his skin, her wet, textured folds milking his cock—

"Ave, Vulpes!” an uncharacteristically cheery Lucius interrupted his distracting thoughts.

"Ave, Lucius,” the Frumentarius responded, caching his immediate irritation at having decided to leave his door open. It was for insurance against the temptation to distract himself further.

"I’ve come to congratulate you. You have acquired quite the slave,” he commented, leaning against the doorjamb. Vulpes sat back leisurely in his chair. “Her performance has already become somewhat of a legend in the barracks. It’s… good. Good to see you have finally found one that complements you so well. Have you taken her for a ride yet?”

"I have. She runs _very_ well,” Vulpes affirmed with a wicked look.

"I saw the way she looked at you on stage yesterday,” Lucius added carefully. “Do you suspect lots of resistance while breaking her in?”

"It is nothing that I cannot manage.”

"And her appetite? Do you intend to get that under control as well?"

Strangely enough, the assumption Lucius made about Aleah's dietary habits made the Frumentarius seethe inwardly. He'd thought the same thing about her himself just until some weeks ago but that had changed, mostly with empirical evidence and for some other reason he didn’t feel like exploring at the time. Neither of the men really knew anything of what she ate, but Vulpes did know that when the looming threat of his move to the Tops pushed her out from the Strip, Aleah spent months living in Freeside with no spare income to spend on frivolous amounts of food, so if she'd been gorging herself all this time, her body would have changed when her 'supply' was cut off... but she looked exactly the same. He came to understand the plushness was her natural figure with proper nutrition, which was honestly one of the things he desired in her, so he would ensure she continued to have regular meals.

His eyes tightened too subtly for even Lucius, the Praetorian's best, to pick up.

"Despite what one might believe, there is nothing there to fix."

"Huh. Good to hear it,” Lucius concluded airily, prepared to leave. Just as he turned and Vulpes mentally primed to close the door behind him, the leader of the Praetorian Guard turned to face him one more time.

 “Ah… I don’t mean to spread gossip. You know I have no interest in rumors…”

Vulpes paused, eyeing his companion closely. “But…?”

“It is Lanius. He has expressed a… vested interest in Aleah, to Caesar specifically.”

"What did he say?" The Frumentarius’s patience for skirting about with words was dwindling. Lucius looked as if he'd just taken a bite from a soured crunchy mutfruit.

 "... that she was too much woman for a man like you to handle."

"And, let me guess, that he would be a more suitable match?" Vulpes offered wryly.

"Yes."

If there was anyone who wouldn’t lie about such a thing, it was Lucius. And there was nary a moment he didn’t accompany Caesar, so he would know. Absentmindedly bringing his hand up to his chin, Vulpes’ eyes were on the Praetor's face but not really seeing him. “Mm.”

 “You carry the utmost favor with the Son of Mars, and myself. If it's any consolation, I do not believe he would humor such a request,” Lucius admitted. “But were I you, I would refrain from allowing the Legate any further access to your property.”

“Duly noted,” the spy replied. He truly appreciated the warning. As the man started in the other direction, Vulpes called out to him once more. The Praetor answered with a curious look. “Thank you for coming by.”

“Of course. I’ll leave you to it, then.” Then Lucius was gone.

So Lanius was closing in. Vulpes thought a lot about the little show that was his brainchild to put together and he knew the risks of putting Aleah on display. When she chose to display herself, it made him jealous; yet when he chose to do so, it was a display of his power, both over her and those who watched.

Men of the Legion were of the Legion yes, an entity instilling the values of discipline, but they were still men and if the property of another was too tempting to respect, anything was possible. And not everyone was capable of the almost clinical adherence to those values that he had... and now not even Vulpes himself technically. He'd been put under the spell of a dissolute woman and gambled heavily to attain her, justifying his behavior with flimsy excuses. Why, if he could make such an exception to the rules for her, wouldn't a man like the mighty Legate, who was next in line to the throne and who was said, by Caesar himself, not to be truly loyal to the Legion but only to him? 

Vulpes didn't like the truth but that didn't make it any less truthful. He would handle it all the same. Perhaps he should marry Aleah. He did intend to keep her, and had no intention to share her physically with anyone. Wives were not considered communal property and as a result statistically less likely to be treated as harshly as those with the title of slave. He must also bring her to be branded… But a scar, title and rite wouldn’t stop the Legate.

There was also the other nagging factor: something must be done with her companion Corinne. Now he considered throwing her to Lanius in hopes of deterring him... but when the Legate set his sights on something specific, little else would do, which Vulpes could not fault him for; they were alike in that regard. Lucius already had a wife he seemed content with. He could present her as a gift to Cato Hostilius, one of his many capable Frumentarii... but the issue with members of the Frumentarii is that they must regularly spend lots of time away, himself included. Long absences required lots of organization for care. Maybe Aurelius of Phoenix, a hardened Centurion who showed regular results, was an option. Either way she would be kept far out of the dancer's reach. The thought of someone else touching her in the ways he wished to set his nerve endings on fire in the worst way.

Whatever he did, Vulpes would ensure Aleah remained safe from everyone, save himself. The sense of release her arrival and… taking provided, though exhausting, was quite restorative, acting as the perfect antidote to the imbalance she inspired by waltzing into his life in the first place. 

There was the boomerang again. Vulpes pulled the door to his new office shut then sat down, taking practiced deep breaths. He would deal with this mess later. Right now, he had a duty to maintain.

 

**

 

The following morning after Aleah’s performance, there was a sonic flood of biblical proportions. Not a single coherent syllable made its way out of her mouth as she laid in bed sobbing, clutching anything she could reach, her blanket, her pillow, herself. But one after another with staccato breaths in between, hysterical calls enveloped the room. They were directed toward no one or thing in particular, just the timeless sound of suffering. Such sounds were white noise to the already indoctrinated, soldiers and slave alike; virtually no one came to be in Legion territory without having their dignity, freedom and everyone they loved torn away from them. Cries of anguish were the Legion’s original score.

            Yesterday, shock at the fresh prospect of captivity kept Aleah from thinking too much about all that happened in the desert, but now it was real and it felt very much like it. Her friend was dead. She was attacked and now being held captive by an evil man, flanked by an army of thousands more. Her lover was missing and likely to face the same fate as her. The facts settled into her psyche and she had nothing to be occupied with, and just as she processed one facet, the next one came back fresh like the first time.

            She was in this triangular cycle of hell until Minima/Adelise came by with provisions, unaware at how critical her distraction was.

"I'm not hungry," Aleah lied unknowingly. Her body was starving but she was still in such shock that she had no appetite.

"You eat, please," Adelise tried, pushing the prickly pear fruit closer to the dancer's face. 

"No," she said as firmly as she could while still maintaining her manners. With all the flaws of her upbringing, Aleah had been raised to be good to wait staff, and she was a maid for some time herself. If there was any time to be ultra kind to the people trying to help, it was when they had no choice.

Adelise struggled to find the words in Aleah's language to tell her that she would make herself sick if she continued to refuse her meals. But that was probably the point, even if it was subconscious.

Something had changed about this woman just from the night before and the caretaker knew it. Yes, she'd been captured but yesterday she was smiling with light in her eyes and helping Adelise see herself anew, and now she was dull as a rusty machete. All too well, she knew the source of the unintentional hunger strike. Rare though it was for him to interact with them beyond menial domestic tasks, Vulpes was known among slaves to be cold, calculating and harsh, and there was no reason why he should be any other way with his own property. 

Aleah was a stunning woman now under Legion rule. Adelise knew she'd been raped by someone, maybe by multiple people. She knew the telltale signs because she'd been in a similar position before her own novelty wore off. But being subject to the wiles of a single higher-ranking officer was far better than boring him and being declared open game, so even if it was a strange way to show she cared, Adelise vowed to keep her healthy for him. She offered the fruit again.

"Please?"

Aleah turned over in her bed, inadvertently revealing bruising on the center of her back that matched the dark markings around her eye. Adelise fought off tears and searched for some sort of incentive.

"You eat... I search Corinne."

The dancers features reanimated as she turned back to the woman. "You know where she is?"

" _Eat."_  

With little ceremony, Aleah sat up and took a hearty bite. Adelise smiled triumphantly, watching her devour the lunch that really should have been her breakfast but that was neither here nor there because she was eating now.

Adelise had her work cut out for her. She'd been granted temporary leave from her usual duties since Vulpes understood that after whatever he did to her last night, she would need to be closely monitored by someone, but she wasn't sure if she could leave Aleah alone safely to search for a woman matching Corinne's description. Not to mention the act itself could get her into trouble. The enslaved population did have secret channels of communication she might be able to employ, but with master infiltrators like the Frumentarii around, leaks were common and the consequences were dire. 

The prickly pear disappeared entirely and Aleah set to work on some pinyon nuts and bottled water. When she'd fulfilled her end of the bargain, she looked at the woman expectantly.

"I... try. Okay?" Adelise promised. Aleah nodded once and looked at her own fingers. Very tentatively, Adelise took them into her hands, checking for any discomfort at the contact. "You... okay, _seule_... _solum?_ "

"Alone?" the dancer clarified, receiving a nod in respond. " _Oui_. Or _si,_ whatever."

Begrudgingly Aleah realized she'd have to pick up Latin soon.

 

**

 

"What color is your hair?" 

"Blonde," Corinne responded wearily. She sat up against the door of broom closet-sized room in the Ultra Luxe's basement, still alone and still scared. The high-pitched voice cooed.

"Ooo! My mama had blond hair! But she died giving birth to me!" it said cheerily.

"How many arms do you have? Do you have seven?" Another young voice chimed.

"That's a silly question, Basilius!" the first voice cut the second one off.

"Is not! Ajax told me mutants can have all kinds of arms and legs! And lots of eyes or ears."

"Ajax is too _cool_ to talk to _you_."

"Shut UP!"

"OW!"

Corinne banged her head against the door for the thousandth time, hoping to wake herself up from this hell. Her voice was ragged and weak. "I have two arms and two legs."

 _For now_ , she thought, _until someone eats them._  She giggled to herself with obvious delirium. The youngsters on the other side of the door didn't know her true condition, so they couldn't tell they were speaking with the beginnings of a madwoman.

"What's so funny?"

"I wanna know!"

"Hey, someone's coming! Shh!"

"Gotta go," the second voice called in a hurry.

"Wait, please!" Corinne begged. She couldn't be alone anymore; she would take any of the voices in her head or outside of it, just as long as she didn't have to be alone.

The knob to the door twisted and it swung open, pushing her body out of the way. She scrambled up to a standing position and stared into a new face, not the Legionary who'd been feeding her for the last couple hours... or days. She couldn't tell anymore. The strange man stood before her with a scowl and a strange, ugly helmet that made him larger than life, since he was already tall.

"You're to be my prize?" he asked, not withholding any contempt. Corinne stood there meekly in her wasteland farmer britches and looked down at herself in shame. She was covered in desert grime and reeked of her own sweat. He turned his nose up at her and spotted the bucket in the corner she'd been using for her waste, and his nose crinkled. "Disgusting."

He walked off but did not close the door behind him. Corinne scrambled after him and trailed behind, not really understanding what was happening but knowing better than to speak. She struggled to match the pace of his long strides but then caught up to him when he stopped in his tracks.

"You are now my slave," he barked. "You will reside in my officer quarters. You are to bathe, and then set to work preparing my dinner immediately. You will obey my every command from this point on and you are not to meet my eyes unless I so tell you. And you are to _always_  walk at least two feet behind me. Do you understand?"

Corinne nodded eagerly. She was just grateful that there was an adult who spoke English. He began walking again and she followed just as he commanded, two steps behind. They climbed stair after stair, rounded corner after corner and finally they were in the restaurant of the Ultra Luxe and headed to reception. It was such a beautiful building that she wanted to stop and look around, but she kept up the pace. 

"You will be provided with some clothes to start. It is your job to care for them as well as my own. You must polish my helmet once a week and when you handle it, you must be extremely careful.”

She wished she had something to write all this new information down.  

“Do you have any experience with tailoring?"

"No," she told him.  He pressed a button and they stepped into an elevator.

"We will find someone to teach you the skill," he stated, then pressed another button. Her thoughts went to Aleah, the only person she knew with experience in mending or creating garments, then her stomach dropped, and not because of the elevator.

"What's your name?" she asked the strange man sheepishly, avoiding his cruel eyes. 

"I am Aurelius of Phoenix," he stated proudly. "You will refer to me as your master."     

She would take it. She would take anything over being stuck in that room for another second. For all intents and purposes, this man was her savior.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really didn't think I'd get to post this week. I won't share much beyond this, but if you knew what happened in my life since the last update, you'd probably be yelling at me not to be concerned with posting on here, and you'd probably be right. But I need a distraction to look forward to, so commentary is strongly encouraged.


	24. Honestas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adelise goes on the hunt for information.

**Vegas, September 4th in the afternoon**  
  
  


Since the New Vegas takeover, to meet the demands of the Legionaries and new captures, many of the fort's slaves were transported to and inhabited the Strip. Vegas yielded a surprising number of surrenders, and all of the strewn discarded bodies of slaughtered adult men and the assimilation of wailing children must be seen to while the mothers and unattached women adjusted to the freshness of captivity.

After a couple days, things seemed relatively normal to the more experienced slaves. They set up camp in the streets of the Strip and Freeside to accommodate the remaining recruits upon Caesar indicating he didn't want more than a handful of his men getting used to the luxury of hotel rooms. 

Adelise found herself at a tented area just outside the old Mormon fort for distribution of provisions, standing about idly. She wouldn't linger too long for she'd draw attention, but she deliberated on where to begin. Her eyes swept the surrounding area for a lead, but none came. Siri, shielded from the blazing sun under a tent and standing behind one of the tables, waved at her.

"Salve, Minima!" she called. Adelise turned at the sound of her second name.

"Salve, Siri," she began, and they conversed in Latin. "How goes your morning?"

Siri smiled. "Same as every other one. I am happy to be alive."  
  
"That is good," Adelise responded, trying to fight bitterness. Happy to be alive was really the extent of their optimism. She added casually, "Have you had a chance to meet any of the new women?"  
  
"Saw a crowd of them yesterday and today, yes."  
  
Adelise nodded, trying to figure out the best way to word her next few questions, as the interrogation was critical.  
  
"There is a new capture I am caring for," she started, not wanting to reveal too much information. "Very scared and she…she has a friend that is also here, who I am hoping to find."

Siri looked neutral still, waiting for more details.

"She just wants to know that her friend is okay," Adelise added.

"Of course, I understand that!" Siri empathized. "Have they been claimed yet?"

Adelise gritted her teeth, knowing precisely where this was going. She cared for her but Siri was one who operated by the book with painstaking conviction, which given the consequences for slaves meddling in affairs like this, she totally understood. Still, it was frustrating. "The one I am searching for, I don't know, but she is a woman of her twenties, blond hair and blue eyes. The one I spoke with has been claimed, yes..."

Adelise hoped she could conveniently withhold the proprietor and get something out of her. Instead, Siri ignored the description and waited for her to continue, face expectant.

"... by Vulpes Inculta."

Instantly Siri's eyes shifted nervously, knowing without a doubt she did not feel comfortable continuing the conversation. Had they been talking about some mid-level soldier or someone who wasn't known for his great penchant to destroy lives in the most personal and painful manner possible, she might have considered helping. Officers didn't speak with her much, but she picked up on a lot and she knew the leader of the Frumentarius had just gotten a captive and was already toying with her in strange ways. She also knew from personal experience that separation from all they knew was a tactic masters purposely used with slaves, so if this woman was isolated from her friend, there was a reason. She had no interest in interfering. She shook her head hurriedly.

"Please. She just wants know where her friend is, to make sure she is safe," Adelise whispered with urgency. She pressed her hands onto the table and leaned over, checking around them for any lurking eavesdroppers and looking Siri in the eye. "Wouldn't you want someone to do the same for you?"

The other woman looked away and bit her lip, guilt cloaking her face.

"This is the slave of Inculta you speak of!" she whispered, still looking off. "You may willingly subject yourself to his wrath, but I will do no such thing."

Adelise glared at her for several seconds waiting for her to turn back, willing her to find within the urge to fight, to help that had to have existed long ago… then the fuse went out on her ire. Siri would offer no help, and she got it. Adelise didn't like it, but she got it.

"Besides," Siri continued. "I have not seen anyone matching that description."

Adelise sighed in frustration and stood up straight, looking around aimlessly.

"For both our safety, I will tell no one of this conversation," Siri concluded. "But I would suggest you give up your search."

The tired lines of Adelise's face stretched into a faint smile. _Of course you would,_ she thought. "I won't bother you about it anymore."

Minutes later, "Minima" found herself loitering around a tent with a few women providing medical and childcare, resisting the urge to flop down with hopelessness on one of the gurneys, which would surely warrant a lashing. There were no leads to follow and she had to return to Aleah soon.

She could hear the laughter of two boys running about and playing. She recognized both of them, Phanes and Basilius, two young ones born into the Legion, sons of two separate Praetorians.

"The blond woman with six arms will come and get you!" one of them shrieked in Latin, giggling and chasing his friend.

"No, she will get you!" the other responded in kind.

"Hey!" Adelise squawked. They looked over to her curiously. She softened her tone to be casual. "Who are you talking about? What blond woman has six arms?"

"The one in the Ultra-Luxe basement," Basilius told her matter-of-factly.

"But I don't believe that," Phanes countered.

"She could be a mutant!"

"She sounds like a regular slave to me, just a new one," Phanes sneered. "Mutants sound very ugly, Ajax said. I'm going to tell on you if you keep spreading stories.

Adelise's face lit up with hope. "You spoke with her? She spoke English?”

“Yes!” they answered together but slightly off sync. As sons of wealthier, high-ranking guards, they were taught English early, as it would be an invaluable tool once they were old enough to begin their military careers in a few years.

“When did you last speak to her?"

"Twenty minutes past, I think," Basilius said.

"But we ran out because Aurelius was coming," Phanes added.

"And?" Adelise prompted sternly.

"And we are not to play in the basements," both the boys said in unison, rolling their eyes.

Awash with relief, Adelise sent the two young ones off to play, and started off back in the direction of the Strip. As she arrived through the gate next to the Lucky 38, she saw the formidable form of the officer known as Aurelius of Phoenix heading straight for her with a woman in tow. Or so she imagined, but when she moved to the side and kept her head down, he continued past as if she were invisible. Sure enough she spotted a blond haired, blue-eyed woman she'd never seen before, marching a few feet behind him and bogged down with a large pack. They were headed for the gate. Another Legionary she recognized, a young man by the name of Cassius, came out from the Tops and called to him in Latin.

"Aurelius of Phoenix, where are you headed?"

"Back to Cottonwood Cove where I am still stationed," he called back without bothering to look, "and where I prefer to be."

He charged through the gate without another word, and Adelise strode coolly back to the Tops with her new intel.

 

**

Getting off the elevator and rounding the corner, Adelise came up to the door of the dancer's room. She pushed the key in and unlocked it, brimming with excitement with the news she had to share. Just as she stepped in, expecting to bombard Aleah with poorly translated words, she stopped short and her face fell.

Vulpes Inculta stood next to the bed with his arms behind his back, glaring at her, and Aleah was on the far end of the bed looking as if, were she able to, she would shrink herself to the size of an atom just to get further away from him.

"Salve, Sir," Adelise tried, not meeting his eyes.

"[I trusted you with caring for this woman who is in no condition to be left alone,]" he began evenly in Latin. "[There had better be a good reason you were not here when I arrived.]"

"[I went to retrieve more food,]" was her calm reply.

He cocked his head slowly to the left in a way that inspired a deep pang of anxiety in the woman's gut. Despite wanting to, Adelise did not look at Aleah; she feared he would take the shifting of eyes as an admission of guilt.

"[And where is it?]" Vulpes inquired further. 

"[I ate it. The woman would not eat her breakfast and finally when she did, she was so ravenous that I gave her the extra fruit I brought for myself, so I went to get a snack for myself.]"

He stepped closer.

"[You may look at me when you speak. What did you take?]"

"[Maise,]" she muttered, thinking of the first thing that came to mind. They'd have too much of that to take specific numbers for inventory. "[I ate it on the way.]”

“[And where did you discard it?]”

“[Some waste basket along the way, I don’t remember where.]”

Inculta waited a few seconds with a lingering humorless expression before he smiled at that. “[How convenient.]”

Under his intense scrutiny, Adelise half expected him to check her teeth. Thankfully he didn’t. She looked into his eyes. "[I am sorry. I... I should not have left her alone but my dinner last night was small and I endured the pain of hunger as long as I could. I should not have left. I will graciously accept any punishment you see fit.]"

Vulpes scanned her face carefully, taking an entire minute. His instincts kicked in and as believable as her story was, something he couldn't put his finger on felt off. Discerning truthful information was his job and all the typical alarms were going off, but Aleah refused to speak to him so he had nothing with which to dispute Minima’s claim at the moment. Finally, he spoke.

"[Leave her alone in this state again and you will be lashed accordingly, Minima,]" he said in his almost musical voice. She bowed her head in acknowledgement. "[I will be in my suite at dusk. Send both her and her belongings there before then.]"

He turned to Aleah, whose head had swiveled warily between the two of them during the conversation in Latin but turned from him instinctively when he addressed her.

"There's no need for this room after today, it has served its purpose," Vulpes asserted in English. It was only used as part of the experience to disorient her at her return and that went over exceptionally well. Now that he went to great lengths to organize her capture, he wanted her in his bed every night ahead when he returned from work. "You'll be staying with me from now on."

Shortly after, he was gone, and the oppressive aura in the room lifted within ten seconds. Both women silently released the breaths they were holding and Adelise came over to sit, her form depressing the bed.

"Did you--"

"I find food, I eat," Adelise said loud and clear just in case he stood eavesdropping by the exit, which seemed like something he would do. She widened her eyes in warning and jerked her head in the direction of the door. "You, hungry?"

"No, I'm fine. Thank you," Aleah answered carefully, understanding in her own eyes.

 _"Bien,_ " Adelise said quietly. "I... um, rest?"

"Okay, sure," the dancer shrugged. Personal care duty with new captures belonging to senior officers was a welcome change to the usual grueling tasks such as cooking, laundering, hauling, child rearing or medical duty, especially with Aleah, but it never lasted longer than it took the women to acclimate. And if they never did, they were eventually slaughtered and that was that. Adelise couldn't remember the last time she had an opportunity to rest during the day outside of a Legion holiday here and there, and even then those were mostly for the soldiers. It felt like the last however many years she spent in servitude working and existing constantly with general anxiety, plus the last few days of being subject to Vulpes' intense attention, were all crashing into her with the force of a missile. She lied back on the bed next to her new sort-of-friend and held the bridge of her nose, taking deep breaths and trying to avoid the stress headaches she was prone to getting.

Meanwhile, Aleah wanted to scream. She would have been eagerly interrogating the woman for answers if she'd returned sooner, but Vulpes had come in the room and she was all alone with him and no one else to be a buffer, should anyone else's presence even deter him.

He'd strode in and kept an amicable distance, as if he knew she was at the breaking point and needed time to adjust to what occurred the night before, but he looked at her with that hallmark perceptive smirk until she scooted as far from him as the bed would let her. She feared crying, screaming and literally running to the corner would provoke him into attacking her again and somehow, with God-like restraint, stopped her body from doing just that. So he just inspected her from afar probably as a one-time courtesy, which came as a great surprise and relief— not that it made up for all of the fuckery he caused. She still hated his fucking guts. Add to that the only reason he didn't want to break his new "toy" just yet was because he wanted to play with her for a long, long time, so really all of his actions were grossly selfish.

Just seeing him had set her minimal progress back, and now she was hugging herself as tight as she could with tears streaming from her eyes, gnashing her teeth involuntarily. Gods was she a mess. She was amazed she kept her lunch down.

Adelise heard a sniffle and looked over, feeling like a fool for not realizing sooner: Aleah was trembling violently. Of course. The man who'd ruined her life less than a day ago had found her alone again. Immediately, the caretaker sat up.

"He...? You...?" she struggled for the words yet again. Staring ahead, the dancer shook her head, denying what she knew the woman was asking. She wanted to hug her, to reassure her... but there was nothing to tell her even without the language barrier. There was nothing good she could say about anything— not Aleah or her friend. _Yes, I saw your buddy but she's some awful man's wife now and is being taken across the desert and you're both going to be slaves for the remainder of your lives if despair doesn't take you?_ Not exactly reassuring.

"I... see blonde," she tried after ten minutes. Aleah looked at her tiredly, waiting for the follow up. _"En sécurité._ Safe. _Vivant. Avec un..._  with man."

That was all Aleah could ask to know, that Corinne was alive. She'd already sent this woman on a very dangerous mission and risked her life. She was terrified for both their fates when Vulpes had dropped by but whatever she told him seemed to have sufficed. She wouldn't make her do anything more.

"Learn Latine," the caretaker uttered.

"Si." Aleah sighed, and welcomed the distraction.

They set to work after that, with Adelise starting a simple vocab lesson with whatever nouns were available in the room. Many of the words were cognates or root words that Aleah understood, and it was a small victory to know that at least the language wasn’t totally foreign. But the pronunciation was funny. Things like colors were the easiest to pick up, and Adelise made a mental note later to see if there might be any picture books kept in the nursery, or drawing and writing tools for a later session.

 _“Capillago,”_ Adelise said later, holding a lock of her limp, brown hair.

Comprehension registered on the dancer's face. She touched her hair and repeated the word, then discovered some gnarly tangle on her head that, if it were not seen to, would result in matting. Aleah rushed to the bathroom attached to her room and found herself in the chipped glass. Adelise followed swiftly behind and came to look at the dancer's reflection as well.

Her fingers worked frantically to detangle the coils there, but the digits were sloppy with frustration, doing more damage than good.

"[Stop]," Adelise ordered. "I help." She made a comb shape with her hand and Aleah nodded, searching through her returned belongings for a tool to use, then placed a brush into the woman's hand as well as some homemade moisturizer, then dampened her hair in the sink to provide some slip. Adelise guided her to sit on the floor and sat on the bed herself with her legs outside of Aleah's shoulders, and began handling the tangles there gently. Aleah let her head fall back and closed her eyes, thinking about the last time someone touched her hair this way. She might have been reading into it, but she thought she felt kindness and affection. 

It wasn't imagined. Adelise styled her hair tenderly, knowing what it was to need to be touched gently without there being some illicit malicious or sexual intent behind it. She separated the strands from one another with care and gathered sections to twist. Aleah was somewhat surprised at the woman's knowledge of her hair texture. Often it was the other way around, where most people only knew how to deal with straight or wavy hair or loose curls, but Adelise seemed to know her way around coarse, tight coils without much definition. By the end of the hour, Aleah had two neat plaits that would be fine to wear for a few days.

 _"Merci,"_ Aleah told her, not knowing the Latin words to express gratitude.

 _"De rien,"_ her caretaker responded automatically. _"En Latine, merci_ is _'gratias tibi ago'_ or _... 'benigne.'"_

Picking up on the gist of what was said, Aleah carefully repeated the Latin words and earned a smile and tentative hug in response.

 

**

"Yes. She came by this table," Siri answered. She stood before Inculta, who naturally made it a point to follow up and investigate the claims Minima made. Compared to the normal blue-to-grey ratio, his eyes were quite steely today, like a well-maintained machete— and he certainly favored one in spirit. Any holes in their stories would be sliced in half, and maybe a slave that was involved as well. He was in his regular uniform without the vexillarius helmet, positioned in front of the table with his hands clasped behind his back in a stately manner. What was peculiar was the lighthearted lilt to his voice and the pleasant look on his face, as if he were chatting leisurely with a friend. It was both disconcerting and comforting at the same time.

"What did she take?" he pressed lightly. Siri swallowed. 

"I don't recall, honestly." It wasn't entirely a lie. She couldn't recall if Adelise took an item or not because she'd actively turned in the other direction while the woman waited around thinking, in hopes of not being put in the very position she was in now. So much for not getting involved. "Someone else needed my help carrying some baskets shortly after so I went to help them."

"And did you see where she went afterward?" he continued.

"No."

"Thank you," Vulpes said, giving her the full breadth of his smile. He could really be handsome when he wasn't torturing people and he chose to be. He tossed her a small spherical object which she caught, and discovered it was a bonbon. "For your help."

Then he was off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends, I am back. This chapter is more of a slow one but I am happy to be updating... though I don't know for sure the frequency of my doing so, going forward. I have been very busy and I'm trying to avoid a burn out. There's a lot of life bullshit happening but this little story and its readers keep me going. Feedback or thoughts are appreciated!


	25. An Apple a Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old friends and fan favorites reunite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter's short and sweet Also, starting with this chapter (and retroactively updating others) I am officially adding calendar date time stamps and location stamps as well. Being so general about it is way too confusing and causing anxiety about the coherence of the timeline.

  
**Shady Sands, September 4th, mid morning**

 

  
  
Arcade Gannon was a man who had a lot of blood on his hands. Literally. 

Right now, actually, and he didn't want any of it there but that came with the territory of being a doctor, especially one in the Wasteland. Thankfully, being a doctor, he was not the cause of this particular effect, just the one trying to shut off the flow. Currently he delivered a small, unresponsive child into the world from a woman who looked like she'd be just as responsive in under two minutes. He passed the bloodied baby to a new nurse nearby and went to work pulling the placenta from the mother and attempting to suture the vaginal tearing.

The nurse gently turned the newborn upside down, expressing fluid from its lungs like she was taught to do, but it still didn't move.

"Dr. Gannon?" the nurse called.

He didn't respond, saving his breath as he focused on the delicate stitching work. Another helper stood near the woman's head, blotting it with a towel.

"Dr. Gannon?" the nurse tried more urgently.

"A little busy here," he called back. The stitches were almost finished.

"The baby's not responding!" she claimed.

"Can you get a pulse?" he asked, not looking away. Just two more to go. There were a couple beats of silence. 

"It's very faint," 

The doctor looked to the person with the rag as it was pressed against the mother’s cheek. " Keep her awake if you can. And give her water, she needs some more fluid." He then snipped and tied the ends of the thread, wiped his hands against his lab coat and crossed over to the nurse, scooping up the baby. He gave it a good smack on the bottom and the child reared, gasping and screaming and sputtering fluid. The nurse let out the breath she held and looked on with amazement. 

"How did you know to do that?" she asked. Dr. Gannon inspected the child closely for any issues and smiled with relief.

"Sometimes you have to just... jump-start them," he admitted. It wasn't something one would pick up in the vast array of medical books available, but rather from word-of-mouth accounts from doctors and midwives he worked with.

Arcade Gannon was no obstetrician, but the small Followers of the Apocalypse camp set up in Shady Sands was a bit short staffed at the moment, what with injured NCR soldiers coming in by the droves. They usually had their own doctors, but the battle was so catastrophic to their ranks that their resources paled in comparison to demand. The two factions disagreed on a lot of points but one would be hard pressed to find a doctor from the Followers that could turn away a wounded person regardless of alignment... though a Legionary or two certainly tested their resolve. 

Arcade preferred research to dealing with people, but that didn't mean he wasn't capable of trauma surgery when the need arose. Providing medical attention was to him like riding a bike, he would never forget the basics and could make it through marathon, but he'd have to build up his condition before he would be doing work he was truly proud of. All the same, he'd lost count of the people he'd seen to in the last few days, and aside from NCR recruits, there were still the Mojave civilians suffering from miscellaneous issues they vowed to serve. Research would be on the back burner for a while.

After ensuring the mother was stable and the child was sound, the doctor washed his hands as best he could in a small basin filled with water and stepped from under the tent into the sun to sit in a rickety chair. He wiped sweat from his brow with his forearm and leaned onto his knees.

"You got blood on your face," a masculine voice enlightened him. He looked up to find Orris with his rifle in hand, crows feet quirking around his blue eyes while he watched him wryly.

"That tends to happen in this line of work. You get used to it by the third time you hear it and begin to think of it as decoration of sorts," Arcade told him, but wiped his cheek anyway. "Red's my color, don't you think?"

"Gonna run and join the Legion then?" Orris suggested playfully, but there was no mistaking the undertone of derision in his voice— the Legion made enemies far and wide.

"Tempting, but I've had my fill of fascist factions. And as much as fun as it would be to have an excuse to get my hands on a bunch of men in skirts, I'd rather spend my time bringing little bundles of joy into the world," the doctor said, jerking to the tent behind him with his thumb. "Doing your rounds?"

Orris nodded. 

When news got to the Old Mormon Fort in Freeside that the Legion was winning at Hoover Dam, even before the battle was declared over, the Followers knew they must pack up and go elsewhere in order to continue their work. Along the way to Shady Sands, their caravans came across a mercenary, Orris, that they recognized from Freeside. His body was slightly thinner, his beard thicker and he looked bedraggled, acquiring a new scar or two but otherwise he was no worse for wear. Arcade didn't know the 'merc' well but in the Mojave, a familiar face that wasn't aiming a gun at you usually was a good one to see, and they needed bodies for protection. He'd been keeping a low profile on his own when they offered him a ride in exchange for helping protect the caravan from any raiders.

Gannon vouched for Orris and he agreed to help and when they made it to Shady Sands, it turned out that there were very few people interested in the personal bodyguard services he offered. With nothing else to do, he stuck among the ranks of Followers guards.

"Well, that and I got some news for you," he added.

"What is it?" Gannon asked.

"'Member that ghoul used to run with you all, the gun-slinging one? She was a guard for awhile?"

The doctor's eyebrows raised. "Beatrix Russell?"

Orris nodded coolly. 

"Some caravaneers just brought her in. She's torn up pretty bad, got a hole in her neck the size of a bottle cap."

Arcade's jaw dropped and he sat up straight. 

"Where is she? Who's seeing to her? Do they need my help?"

"Nah, Julie's patching her up. But I know all the doctors from Freeside knew 'er so I figured you should know," Orris replied. 

"Thank you," he responded blankly, still surprised. "She was a decent guard back there. Small world."

"That's the Mojave for you," Orris chimed. "Gotta finish these rounds though. I'll catch up with you later."

The doctor managed a mild "yeah, okay" and then sat back, or at least for as long as his restlessness would allow, then he got up and set his course for Beatrix's tent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second Tuesday/Wednesday in a row that I have updated, but this doesn't mean I am back to the once a week, just a heads up. There's still a lot going on, so I haven't had much time to write new chapters, mostly updating existing ones that haven't been posted yet.
> 
> Comments welcome!


	26. Home Suite Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lanius confides in a friend and Vulpes does more awful shit. 
> 
> Content/trigger warning for sexual assault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to make any comments about the morality of those who'll enjoy this chapter (myself included) but I will say this: do your part. Take some time out of your day to take an extra step to support survivors or speak out against the culture that encourages real sexual assault. Thanks!

[Vegas, the following evening after the show/assault] September 4th

 

The Legate Lanius was a man who fought for a lot in his life, not that he didn’t enjoy competition. The details didn’t matter: so long as there existed some category to be won, he was ready to crush it with his mighty fist. The biggest, the fastest, the strongest—he could call himself these things. He would venture to say he was the smartest, but intelligence seemed to be a subjective category, with some people saying it was smarter to hide and resort to tricks as opposed to being capable and stout enough to tackle problems head on. So he relented on intelligence, unconcerned with those who held low opinions of him. Those opinions wouldn't matter hand to hand in the ring.

            But when it came to prizes, which was merely another word for women in the Legionary’s vocabulary, he would not be stiffed. The Frumentarius Inculta waved his prize around a room of men like a blood red cloth taunting the bull, and Lanius was prepared to charge. If true dominion over this slave was the spy's goal, then, Lanius felt, he should not share even the sight of her with those that carried more influence than he, especially given that he had little in the way of defense. Luckily for Inculta, the Legate was the only person above him truly interested in taking from him his possession. Unluckily for Inculta just as well, the Legate was truly interested.

            Felix, a short, tawny skinned Centurion within the Legate's unit who was for all intents and purposes his second in command (and one of the few men who managed both not to irritate him immensely nor threaten him socially), sat with Lanius at a table in his officer suite on the top floor in the Gomorrah. Felix was a man with a seemingly abnormal level of patience for listening quietly to the Legate's maniacal rants. Some days he took the passionate ramblings with a grain of salt— the Legate had dozens of impractically violent and experimental tactics he wished to try— because they were just that: ramblings. Other times, the ideas he conjured were not inherently violent, but his delivery of them was so fierce that they seemed to be so. 

            Everyone needed an outlet, particularly the man fighting his persistent nature to surmount something each passing moment, and Felix was happy to lend his ears in order to prevent the frivolous dark fantasies that needn't come to fruition. Then there were times when he knew the Legate would not be stopped and he could only hope to guide him by presenting a more efficient way to go about the execution of an idea, all right under his nose, since the threat of being seen as manipulative by Lanius always dangled. He often had to work in such a way as to have the Legate believe certain improved ideas were his all along, which was tricky business, as he was a very sharp man— just not subtle. 

            "Perhaps your inclination toward subtlety would be better suited by the Frumentarii," Lanius had slighted him once. He was a very sharp man indeed.

            "I only believe you would benefit from a hint of it where useful, not by living your life in the shadows. To be purely one way is to never evolve," Felix had retorted smoothly. Lanius squinted but said nothing else. From that moment on, it appeared the Legate was much more receptive to the Centurion's suggestions. 

            Today, however, said receptiveness was not entirely forthcoming. The giant man paced about the spacious room restlessly, wringing his hands against the air.

            "She was pure flesh, Felix. Pure fuckable flesh. You saw her up there, surely you understand," Lanius marveled, his booming voice cloaking the suite. "I shudder with disgust at the thought of her bounty being exploited by such a scrawny joke of a man. Something must be done."

            "He is favored by Caesar," Felix reminded him.

            "As am I."

            "Maybe there is another woman like her in the Mojave," Felix started, then backtracked faster than he ever had to before after a single glance from the Legate. Maybe suggesting he, of all people, find a substitute wasn't the brightest of ideas. "But I suppose one with her presence might prove difficult to come by."

            Lanius snorted haughtily, truly reminiscent of a bull.

            "Were there ten other women like her lined up outside, I would not take another. This one is the one I want and the one I shall have," he declared.

            "Because she is her... or because she is _his?"_  Felix pressed carefully.

            "Both," the Legate was blunt in his clarification. Felix acquiesced. 

            "So what shall you do? Caesar has already expressed that you leave Inculta's property be."

            "I am still deliberating," Lanius confessed. 

            "As it may be, you could just take her," Felix offered, reclining back into the ruined sofa he sat on. "As much of a worm as he is, I don't foresee him scampering to our lord with his tail between his legs to tattle. He would fight you himself."

            "And he would lose."

            "Then so be it."

            The Legate grinned nastily behind his mask.

            "So be it, indeed."

***

           When Vulpes came home later than intended, he was exhausted, but not so much that he didn't take a moment to appreciate the significance of tonight. As he plugged the key into the elevator and twisted it to gain access to the presidential suite, he understood that this was the first time he ever came home to a woman. Why the thought made his skin tingle in such a strange way he was acutely aware: to see Aleah in his bed was to peel back another layer of his conquering her, and there were yet other layers beneath to savor before he reached the core of her true submission. It would also transform him, as such absolute control over a single person was something he’d never known. Full control might take days or years, though he didn’t mind playing the long game. But for now, he just wanted to appreciate this first step. The elevator rose and he smiled to himself, giving into the urge to say it aloud.

            "I am coming home to a woman," he said slowly. "My prize."

The elevator stopped at the suite, depositing Vulpes into the room and were he not so well trained, his pulse might have quickened as he scanned for her and she was not there. The elevator let into the vestibule of his suite, but there were rooms within. And so he went from door to door soundlessly until he stopped short in the doorway to the suite’s bedroom. 

           Aleah, exhausted from emotional turmoil and dressed in a reasonably modest nightgown, was splayed across the mattress slumbering. He leaned against the jamb with his arms crossed, studying her from a distance. From the look of things, the quality of sleep was poor: she ground her teeth, frowned, muttered once and continued grinding. She lied on her side, curves starting at her shoulders and dipping in at the waist, then rounding back out at her hips like a landscape painting of a valley between two mountains. Her chest and stomach rose and fell with even breaths and she drew her knees up closer to her body. 

            Vulpes crossed the room and crawled next to her carefully so as not to wake her, and found his hand on the skin of her large, partially exposed thigh. He rediscovered her incredible softness, and, face transfixed with wonder, he pulled the hem of the gown up to her tummy, tracing his fingers along the web of stretchmarks there. She stirred mildly as he dragged his fingers up the soft skin of her arm, swatting at him unconsciously when he reached her shoulder, and he smiled to himself. He examined her hair, finding the coils he liked so much missing, they were secured into two practical but still fetching braids. The style stretched her hair and he could see it was actually longer than he previously thought. Leaning over, he picked up the familiar scent of prickly pear mixed in with the perfume that was purely her. It was when Vulpes checked the tightness of the explosive collar that she woke up with a start.

            Aleah scooted away when she recognized him, nearly launching herself off the bed. She clutched the mattress for stability and resembled a frightened rodent caught in the spotlight.

            "How did you rest?" Vulpes asked evenly, still in the same spot as before. She didn't answer, only her fearful eyes scanned him. He casually went for her foot that was still within reach and she drew it back to the rest of her body in the nick of time, which made him smile darkly at her. Vulpes was in a good mood tonight. He reached again to deliberately make contact with her toe.

            "Don’t!" Aleah shrieked, watching as he froze while leaning over her foot but didn't go further. She tried to calm herself with deep breaths. He closed his hand around her ankle, not pulling, but instead taunting her with a grin that widened slowly, thumb tickling the skin. She lunged off the bed and went for the corner of the room, hands back against the wall, but while doing so scraped her leg against the corner of the end table. She was too frenzied to notice the pain. The image of leisure, Vulpes lied across the bed on his side, and watched her closely with his signature smirk.

            "Don't think for one moment that I would let you have the bed to yourself. You're free to stay in the corner the remainder of the night, but I doubt you'll sleep any better over there," he quipped. She didn't budge. He stared back evenly then eventually turned over to the other side of the bed to pull a large pre-war book on philosophy from the shelf of the nightstand, flipping to a dog-eared page and returned to the position. "I recommend sitting at some point."

            Vulpes began to read silently, emitting the image of composure and aloofness, but inwardly he longed to take her again. After a few minutes of playing statue, she slid down the wall and sat, her eyes not leaving him once. As she moved, his eyes flitted from the text up to her. Eventually she bowed her head in either exhaustion or boredom.

            "Shall I read aloud to you?"

            Aleah swiveled her head away defiantly.

            "Or I could turn on the radio. You can dance for me, or work on a new routine," he offered. Her face whipped over to stare indignantly at him and he rewarded her with a mischievous smile and wink for effect. The butterflies in Aleah's stomach fluttered at the handsome gesture, but were replaced by an almost painful burning sensation resulting from anxiety. "You like to do that to pass the time, yes?”

            For the thousandth time, Aleah's face asked "how did you know?" when her voice was nowhere to be found. To be honest, it was a calculated guess and not a very tough one, but Vulpes was right on the money because he was just good like that.

            He sat upright, closing the book and scooted over to let his legs touch the ground. "Barring your testing me, you did very well last night. It was your best yet."

            Aleah watched him skeptically. She didn't really know what to say, but she wasn't going to thank her rapist, that was for sure.

            "Though as your new master, I am tasked with seeing that you always strive to do better, aren't I?" Vulpes mused thoughtfully, loosely tenting his fingers in his lap. "In all areas of performance."

            The dancer gulped, tensing her body to dart out of the room.

            "You are welcome to run," Inculta responded, beating her to her thoughts. His tone became conversational. "But were you even fortunate enough to make it past me to the elevator, you'd need the key: I only left it open today so that Minima could transport you."

            He stood, looking doubly tall from the floor on which she sat. 

            "Guards are posted at every possible exit of this building and the Strip," he continued airily, strolling toward her. He stopped short right at her feet and she had to lean her head all the way back to look at him.

            "Then," he concluded, "there's still the collar. Tell me, do you think the explosion will create a mist from your remains, or will chunks of you simply rain down? I can tell you, if you wish to know. I have seen it many times."

            Inculta stroked his fingers against her scalp with something like adoration. Stuck between a rock and a hard, throbbing place, Aleah stared up at him, tears welling in her eyes. From below, the lighting of the room cast strange shadows across his face and somehow left him even more intimidating. He brought a finger to her bottom lid and expressed a tear, then licked the salt from his finger while maintaining heavy eye contact. Her mouth trembled deliciously.

            "On your knees, Aleah," Vulpes commanded softly. She got to them without hesitation, well aware she should not test his resolve this time. When she was in position, he slowly lifted the casual tunic from his body, revealing a textured and muscular torso hardened by years of physical conditioning to ensure peak endurance. All that remained were his pteruges.

            The dancer’s brown eyes roved the spy’s form, taking great care to hide her appreciation, but even in her panicked state she found him to be a marvel. He was like a marble statue with flaws purposely added to enhance his character. His skin paled in the center compared to his tan forearms, and there were more scars than Aleah could feasibly count in the time between him removing his top, letting her study him and his hands going to his waist. She shuddered in fear when she realized what was next.

            Vulpes’ skirt dropped to the floor, revealing his borderline freakishly large erection with a network of pulsing veins along it. He assaulted her the night before, but she only felt him. Now that she was face to face with his cock, Aleah released a genuine gasp, then looked back up to his face terrified, but he kept up his neutrality.

            “Open,” he ordered. Aleah shook her head not in defiance, but honestly trying to appeal to his sense of logic.

            “That… that won’t fit,” she promised. He gave her a look that basically reminded Aleah that not only did he not give a shit, but he wanted her to amuse him with her struggle. The tears finally spilled and her eyes squeezed shut while the dancer tried to wish herself away. Not too long after that though, they flew open, because she felt warm flesh poking her cheek. Vulpes rubbed her tears in with his erection, mixing them with the clear fluid on his tip.

            _“Open,”_ he ordered again, this time anchoring his hand to her braid. Gingerly the dancer parted her lips and tried to let him in, and when he tried to force her head back again the wall she moaned around him. Her jaw stretched painfully and she braced her hand against his hips, looking up at him. She knew Vulpes wasn’t going to stop but she hoped he would at least allow her to take it easy and go at her own pace, and he seemed to understand… But he didn’t care.

            Inculta delighted in pushing her just a little too far, so he would thrust in slowly, letting her work her tongue along his glans, and every once in awhile he’d push far back to occupy more of the space in her throat. Aleah was a quick learner and picked up on the pattern, but Vulpes was, well _, Vulpes,_ so he began to vary to keep her from getting comfortable.

It would start with a mild gag, but they grew in urgency each time he shoved down further in her throat, and then she began to whimper, her vocalizations vibrating around his cock and bringing him close. At some point, he’d worked in up to half his length down. The feel of her wet mouth and throat stretching around his most sensitive parts was sensational, and Aleah braced herself for the release she could read on his face that was soon to come.

Just before it did though, he smiled down at her with affection and shrouded malice, delicately stroking the stray curls around her hairline before abruptly pinching her nose shut. Aleah choked violently, striking at him with her hands and trying to push him out but all Vulpes had to do was use his weight and lean into her mouth and she was powerless to stop any of it.

Her struggle drove him to release, and he shot warm globules of mildly bitter cum down her throat, waiting until the last possible second when the dancer looked like she would pass out from lack of air, to pull out of her mouth.

She gasped, she gagged, she coughed, she swallowed. Then she collapsed to the floor and sobbed. Sated, Vulpes kicked off the rest of his clothing and shoes and made his way to the bed, pulling back the blanket. When he looked over to her, Aleah was still in the corner, weeping. Nude, he strode back to her, suggesting she come to the bed when she whipped herself away from him, trying to scoot as far into the corner of the bedroom as she could. The Frumentarius watched the tantrum for a moment with disinterest and minor irritation, then decided he wouldn’t spend the energy to force her into bed nor build up her trust and coax her there, so he left momentarily and returned with a thin sheet, draping it unceremoniously over her shaking form.

Having shut off the lights, he climbed into bed and listened to her cries until he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm the worst, I know. So anyway, you know the drill! 
> 
> thoughts  
> |  
> |  
> |  
> v
> 
> (c'mon, i made an arrow!)


	27. Coming To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arcade checks on Beatrix, Corinne adjusts to her new life and Cassius grows impatient.

[Shady Sands, September 4th in the afternoon]

By the time Arcade had arrived to check in on Julie and Beatrix, the ghoul was stable and resting. It turned out she was in quarantine so that she could be irradiated, as was reportedly regenerative for ghouls. Julie Farkas stood outside her tent scribbling something onto a clipboard when Arcade approached her and she looked up.

"Hey," she tossed in his direction.

"Hey yourself. I heard Beatrix Russell came in with serious injuries," he tossed back. He stood just before her with folded arms, unintentionally squinting from the glare of the desert sun. She nodded. "Any updates?"

"She's stable. Gunshot wound to the throat, hit the vocal folds," Julie started. "She's being irradiated now. Once her levels are looking better, I'll have to perform surgery if she ever hopes to speak again."

Gannon grimaced.

"Let me know if you need anything. I always liked her. She's a rowdy one."

"That's for sure. She'll pull through alive, I think," the other doctor affirmed. "It's just her voice that might not."

"Do we know who shot her?" Gannon asked. Julie finally finished writing down whatever she had been.

"She wasn't exactly in the position to answer any questions."

He turned pink.

"But the caravaneers said they found her half dead and were just doing their civic duty," she said tiredly. "Which is surprising with the amount of ghoul haters out there. I guess some decent folks still exist."

Arcade sighed. "I guess so. Will you let me know when she's conscious again?"

Julie nodded, eyes on the clipboard, and he walked off. On his way back to his own tent, he was intercepted by Orris with a cigarette in hand. The doctor waved the smoke away as he walked through it.

"She talking yet?" the guard asked, looking uncomfortable. He dropped the butt and ground it with his boot.

"No."

"You hear anything, let me know, alright? I... didn't wanna say anything earlier but," the dark haired man trailed off, not meeting the doctor's eyes as his own clouded over with concern. "She's a friend of a friend, and I haven't seen or heard anything about that friend. I just want some answers, what with the Legion crawling all over Vegas. I want to know if she's safe."

"As soon as I hear she's up, I'll send for you. Keep those fingers crossed though."

"Thanks."

 

**

[Cottonwood Cove, September 4th – 12th]

Consider the feeling of moving into a new home. The new surroundings are strange, foreign, exciting, and they take some time getting used to, yet if the right reasons are present, the experience is generally pleasant. But the ease of settling in and getting acquainted with the change was a comfort that would elude Corinne for some time. Aside from the fact that she must keep her already clean new home practically sterile, she also had to endure the harsh orders of her new 'husband,' Aurelius of Phoenix. She got his name wrong once and learned quickly not to ever do that again. The bonus was that she fell into step so quickly, he didn’t see the need to take the hot metal to her skin; the red Xs on her clothing were enough.

At the very least, she could appreciate the amount of space there was in the second level of the HQ building they now inhabited together, much bigger than both her rooms at the Wrangler. There was little else to enjoy though. After she got over the shock of seeing dead bodies posted up on crosses when they’d first approached the area, she saw outside a giant sign that read "Cottonwood Cove." She thought it was delightful that her home was on the shore of a beautiful body of freshwater. She imagined drinking her full and taking leisurely dips on blazing afternoons before she was instructed of her real duties. Now her primary interaction with the water basically consisted of laundering and hauling up tub after tub to boil for Aurelius's baths every night.

The physical toil paled in comparison to the sexual assault though. 

Corinne was led to believe every Legionary was a sex-crazed rapist through NCR propaganda. But admittedly, Aurelius was not an extremely sexually active man it seemed, as within the first week of them living together, he laid with her only once. He also wasn't remarkably interested in cruelty; he just went to work on her with mechanical efficiency like he did on anything else: procreation was just another task to get done and he was a busy man.

The problem, aside from sexual assault being a problem in and of itself, was that the man was a giant. Aurelius of Phoenix was one of the most formidable bodies in the Legion, possibly second only to Lanius. Every part of him was large, but it was mainly his weight and lack of consideration while atop her that was a bit much for the petite blonde to handle. The first time he nearly smothered her and she found purple markings around her ribs the next morning.

There also weren't a lot of people at the cove, so she had yet to make any new friends. There were a few remaining unclaimed captives in the pen next to the building but no one would acknowledge her when she came by. Then some jerk in a funky helmet/mask combo clamored at her for the bothering them, but told her he’d spare his fist this once because of the rank of her husband.

Jeez, she thought. The guys around there all seemed to have machete handles lodged snuggly up their—

"As I told you before, we are not able to exchange these dog tags for caps," Aurelius told the ragged looking Great Khans standing before him. Corinne, interrupted from her thoughts, folded some clothes in the background while the centurion conducted business with the strangers. "I don't even know why you're bothering me about payment anymore, I already told you to consult the Decanus outside. The best we can do is Legion Denarius or some food provisions."

Corinne thought there was never a time he spoke that he didn’t come across as extremely annoyed. She thought it was just with her at first but she’d seen how he spoke to recruits and there wasn’t much of a difference, and she was convinced that was just his way.

"We're botherin' you because we would really, really like caps instead, if you catch my drift, man,” the first Khan tried again.

Aurelius’s eye twitched and he huffed haughtily once; in truth he itched to execute them both, but the frail alliance between the Legion and the Khans still existed and they’d need their support in the move on Shady Sands.

 “I apologize for anything I’ve ever said that would make you think I give a shit what you want. I do not care what chems you seek payment for, you degenerates. I’ve seen greater men bring in three times as many tags and still settle for what we offer. You’ll find no caps. If that continues to be a problem, I am happy to end it by other means.”

The two Great Khans looked between one another trying to silently work out if they had enough moxie to test him. Aurelius, entirely aware of what their silent conversation meant, smiled at the two men darkly, daring them to try him. Even Corinne had frozen while folding, too curious to look away. The Khans made a smart choice and left without another word, and the Centurion looked back to his clipboard without missing another beat.

            The blonde supposed that, even though she had it pretty bad, she could have it worse. With him around, no one else could make her feel unsafe, that was for certain. It was just that he did.

            “If you spend any longer folding those capes, my dinner won’t be ready on time,” he warned her like clockwork, without even looking up. Corinne didn’t want to leave him room to make any more of a threat, so she put it in turbo mode and went to work.

 

**

[September 5th: Noon, Vegas]

Cassius had drive. Cassius had a lot of enviable qualities, but he liked to think drive took the lead. Who didn't like a man that sought to accomplish his goals, especially if those goals were to fight well and be lauded among true heroes? More people could stand to value that, he thought. By extension, more people could stand to value him, though he didn't say that aloud when he was with friends. 

Midday, he sat at a mess table with some other recruits in his age range. Ajax, dark skinned recruit of around the same age of about nineteen years and Cassius' friend, was one of many young men for whom the second battle at Hoover Dam had been their largest battle yet. Voices buzzed and blended together from the bodies all around them. Seated just next to him, the young man relayed a tale of how he slaughtered a ranger all on his own.

"She stared at me in dread, blood spitting from her lips just as I withdrew my blade from her abdomen," Ajax recalled proudly. "It was a glorious shame, really. She was worth looking at, would have been better to put a child there instead of a machete."

The group of young men nodded together in agreement.

"It is of no consequence though," he continued. "I'll have my own slave soon enough."

Cassius's head snapped toward him.

"Ha! Says who?" he demanded.

"Well... no one has said anything per se, but I believe I proved myself to be fit in battle, and a fitting reward should find its way to me too," Ajax amended. Cassius left his friend with a harsh sneer.

"You and many others. That does not mean you will see anything for it, for a long time," he told him. "I should know."

"Yes," Theocles, a third young man in their group jumped in. "Unless we combine resources and share in the burden to purchase one or venture into the Mojave and find some women of our own to take, it will be some years before we have property that is truly ours."

"I could never share a woman with another," Cassius claimed, pushing away from his empty plate with a scowl.

"Long term, maybe. But right now, were there a fresh, busty nude captive with her legs spread wide that we could all have a bit of fun with..." Ajax interjected, nudging his companion. Cassius fought a smile.

"Point made, but we'd all probably catch some venereal disease from you."

Ajax shrugged. "Consider it a token of my appreciation."

"Well, patience must be a virtue," Theocles mused. Ajax muttered something in response but the young, determined Cassius did not speak. Instead, he simmered inwardly. He was a man, and a man wants what he wants and should not have to share, he thought. Surely most of the Wasteland women had the same idea to flee like the two Vulpes Inculta tasked him with returning, so going out into the Mojave to find someone was much more likely to be a giant waste of time. He must save his denarius and/or gain more favor.  So at the next opportunity. Cassius would prove himself to Inculta.

Or he may bypass that altogether and make himself stand out to someone above him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually wrote new content this week! About a chapter's worth, but it will be spread out amongst the existing chapters I have in the document. That's a start, right?
> 
> Aside from your thoughts on the update, I'm curious as to whether any of you have fan-casts for F:NV characters in general. Bonus points if they are for characters featured in this story. I sometimes think of fan-casting Aleah, I technically have done so in my head but not with anyone popular enough I feel comfortable sharing. I also want to leave her open within the presented physical description-- outside the fact that she's lovely, plus size and of black descent. I actually don't get much more specific than that because I like the idea of her body size being a bit open to interpretation so that readers can decide what they want to imagine for themselves. But at the absolute smallest, she'd be a US size 16-18.


	28. Caesars, Couriers et Curiositas.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone decides to have a go at Vulpes' personal life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You ever write something and you're not really sure if it's shit or not but you need the context to move the plot along? And you try to decide which is the best way to go about it (prioritizing quality vs advancing plot) when you remember this was all supposed to just be a few chapters of smutty fun and not such an undertaking?
> 
> Yeah. Me too. Here's the update for those of you who have gently prodded! (I needed it.)

[Vegas, September 6th ]

“You seem… different.”

The comment came as no surprise. Vulpes Inculta’s skin had prickled with the recognition of detection that accompanies peak perception, several seconds before the statement was made. It was his job to read his surroundings: the energy of a room and its inhabitants, the set of people’s posture, the pace and inflection of a voice, the trajectory of its path, all tiny little things most humans calculated in seconds; the only thing that made him different was that he was trained in the habit of doing so even before people knew what they wanted to say aloud, and he had yet to ever misread a signal. Details were like dust particles that shimmered when they caught the light and his mind was a filter.

This being the case, without facing him Inculta knew Caesar spoke to him, though there were others in the Ultra Luxe meeting room. He also knew the subtext of Caesar’s statement after having endured thoughtful glances from him over the last half hour: Caesar thought him more concentrated, and he was right.

Aside from having mastered reading people before they knew their own intentions or desires, Vulpes was hyper aware that his somewhat prescient ability was unsettling. Obviously, making people uncomfortable was a useful tool in his belt… but just as valuable was the air of harmlessness, so with those closest to him in rank and those he didn’t want to alienate with his acuity, he often pretended to know less than he did. Letting people work their own thoughts out made them feel in control.

“Is that so?” Vulpes looked at his leader with feigned curiosity as he rolled up the map his colleagues plotted points of interest and strategy upon. A meeting to plan the Legion’s next moves had recently concluded among the senior-most officers, with one glaring, masked and absentee exception of course.

“Don’t worry, your poker-face is still the most solid one I know,” Caesar promised. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “But you are different. Somehow, you’ve managed to become more focused… which is a task considering the usual level you operate at.”

“A high compliment,” Vulpes answered. “It is most appreciated.”

“Hnh…” Caesar grunted, not quite contented.

With a grin, Lucius came over to hand the Frumentarius a small length of twine; he tied it around the rolled map while the Praetor gathered all the pin-points with tiny green flags attached and placed them into a small sac.

“I know that face, it’s the one of wheels turning. He won’t let you get away with just that,” Lucius spoke.

“You’re right about that, I will not,” Caesar confirmed. His beady eyes narrowed beneath his pale eyebrows as Vulpes, cool as ever, stood before him awaiting dismissal.

“Sir?” he prompted politely. The meeting was over and though he cached it, he was bored of being analyzed for his personal matters.

“It’s that slave of yours,” Caesar declared with suspicion. Vulpes blinked innocently, a playful lilt to his speech.

“What slave?”

“HA!” Caesar cackled immediately. Lucius sniffed in amusement too and appreciated the his jest; sometimes a good joke was the only way to get Caesar off your back when he decided to play the hounding father figure.

“Just the one you paraded aroun’ naked on stage for all of us to gawk at,” another voice drawled.

Vulpes turned to Courier Six, a tall, strong-framed, gifted and exceptionally sharp individual whose (not particularly convincing) Western twang and mannerisms cloaked the breadth of his skills, to his benefit. Most judged him for his perceived upbringing and few were prepared for the dastardly schemes he hatched upon the Mojave. His ability threatened many but not Inculta, though there did exist a minor tautness between the two born of rivalry. It was all in good fun, not at all like the tension between he and Lanius. Though if it came down to it, Inculta was undecided on whether he’d trust the outsider with his life. Thankfully, he could trust him with Caesar’s. So far.

“I truly hope you enjoyed the show, as I have you to thank for introducing us. After all her show was where I caught you first on the Strip, that fateful night. You have come a long way from flagrant profligacy,” Vulpes shot back evenly.

“Sounds like you’re slipping in that regard then, don’t it?” Six offered as he stood; he’d been seated upon the table.

“Possibly, but a little bird tells me that your problematic acts far outnumber my own, or anyone else here for that matter, if we’re keeping count. Would you like to discuss them now?” Vulpes alluded. Six smiled.

“Touché.”

“For fuck’s sake, I can’t tell if you’re friends or if you’re going to slit each other’s throats in the night,” their leader exaggerated, but he knew the sparring match was innocent enough and, more importantly, finished. He could get back to his point. “That slave of yours, she does something to you. You have always been wound tight, and it works for you. But all pressure must find its relief somewhere, sometime. I can see yours is found in the right cunt. If I’d known all it took was a portly whore to help you unwind, I’d have started force-feeding slaves long ago!”

Everyone laughed, save for the Frumentarius himself. At least Lucius had the decency to look mildly uncomfortable, but moments like this were a stark reminder that Caesar, for all his excellence, was not without fault. Like many others with no personal stake in understanding her, he had no reason to challenge his overwhelmingly naïve worldview on Aleah—but that wasn’t the root of the issue. What was more disappointing was how little he seemed to understand about Vulpes’ emotional desires after practically raising him. That must be the catch of the spy keeping so much to himself, he supposed.

“Even your hypothetical generosity is unmatched, Imperator,” was all Vulpes said. He’d gotten good at finding just the right balance and tone to address Caesar, hence how he’d become one of the few long-running favorites. Too little would irritate him, too much would offend.

“I jest in good fun, Vulpes. You know that,” Caesar uttered from beneath his best congenial smile. The younger man nodded. “Tell me, though. What _is_ her cunt like?”

Vulpes stared at his leader for a good few seconds before slowly matching his expression in his usual way. It wasn’t uncommon for men close in rank to ask such things and there was no shame to said curiosity.

“Sublime.”

“What a word to use,” Lucius mumbled, looking as if he were asking himself if he could describe his own wife in the same way.

“How wet does she get for you?” the leader pushed.

There was curiosity, and then there was prurience. Caesar had the singular luxury of not needing to know the difference. Truthfully, the spy had been waiting for it.

“Enough.”

The double entendre might be toeing the line but Vulpes grew impatient with the line of questioning. It went right over his leader’s head anyway.

“Just ‘enough?’ Her pot should overflow! She should soak through her bejeweled underthings, not for her benefit but for your pleasure,” Caesar harped. “Do you require instruction?”

“I think everything goes well between the two of them, or so I have heard,” Lucius cut in, cautious. Caesar relented once and for all with a dramatic roll of his eyes. Vulpes made eye contact with the Praetor, unreadable of course, but he didn’t stop him so Lucius imagined he was obliged. “And you, Six? Have you taken your pick of the lot yet? You are certainly entitled to a capture after all your work.”

Six shrugged.

“We’ll see. No one has caught my eye yet.”

“What do you desire?” Vulpes queried, solidifying the conversation’s new course.

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

They all lingered about wordlessly until Six suggested that their leader not overexert himself, and it was to everyone’s relief that he agreed. When Caesar’s liver spotted hand gestured the okay, the Courier and the Spy made their exit together, leaving the Praetor behind. Down hallways and stairwells, they walked leisurely side by side in silence.

During their stroll, both of the men appreciated in varying degrees how lovely the Ultra-Luxe was even though they’d both been there plenty of times before in their work.

It was kind of the building whose meticulous upkeep almost made Vulpes appreciate Vegas and the preservation efforts of its venal former patron, Robert House. Or, at least until he remembered how the rest of the Mojave suffered in spite of it. Savage populations withered in the desert, in need of guidance and protection, of organization, but at least the marbled countertops were in tact and the fountain still ran, pumping purely decorative water.

He dismissed the thought. The ghost of New Vegas’s corruption didn’t deserve the energy he spent. But it seemed like his newer brother-in-arms could use his attention.

As they rounded a corner, Vulpes saw the mouth of his walking partner twitch and he encouraged him.

“You wish to say something.”

The Courier cocked his head and winced not in pain but in thought, the kind of face a man made when he was calculating how vulnerable he could afford to be.

“Heh. Yeah.”

There was some more silence between them.

“You know,” Vulpes began, “The benefit of being a fully developed human being is that I can walk and listen at the same time.”

Six looked at him like he’d just sprouted another set of eyes.

“An amazing feat, I know,” he joked.

“I’m more surprised that you’re offering to play counselor, even if sarcastically. You don’t exactly seem like the type to care about what I’m thinking,” the Courier admitted.

“Well, if you insist on dissecting my reasons for offering, then I will simply tell you. Unless it's working to my advantage, I find hesitation quite irritating,” Vulpes explained, half playful, half serious. Six chuckled. “So I stand to gain something if you just get on with it.”

“Alright, I’ll bite.”

Vulpes didn’t speak further; he was waiting for the Courier to speak. With a grand sigh, he finally did.

“None of the captures caught my eye because… I think I may have my own ‘Aleah,’” Six confessed.

Vulpes’ curiosity whirred and he waited for more.

“As in, someone I’m considering crossing the desert for,” he added. “The one that got away and such. Someone who… _riles_ me up, you know? Vexes me like nobody else, in the worst kind of way. But at the same time, it’s someone who I might love... it’s confusing. This person not being here ruins my focus. ”

“Interesting choice of words,” Vulpes commented.

“Using you as a point of comparison is helpful. Not every Legionary has your level of patience and ability to plan, but even still, you would’na done all that you did to get her here if she didn’t do somethin’ wild to you.”

“I suppose she might,” he mused coolly. “But she didn’t get away, not for long.”

“No need to point out my shortcomings, not everyone treats love or lust like another assignment to finish efficiently,” Six muttered.

“Perhaps you should start and you wouldn’t find yourself wondering so often what could have been and you could focus on the tasks you are given,” Vulpes suggested in earnest, and the Courier considered being offended for a moment before he realized Inculta was only telling it like it was.

“You might be right,” he confessed, but in typical Frumentarius fashion, there was no reply. They reached ground level when the Courier grew curious again. “So… you ain’t confirmed nor denied it, and maybe it’s too soon to say for sure, but do you actually care about her? Do any Legion men end up caring about their captives? You especially don’t strike me as the type who hunts meat just to show off and play with.”

“You have a real interest in my personal affairs. It would be impressive were they actually relevant to your own situation.”  
            “I said it before, you seem like a good frame of reference,” Six countered. “And I’m nosy, it’s one of my best qualities. Now answer the question.”

Inculta didn’t answer immediately. He gaze went beyond Six for a moment, then fell back on him intensely, though it wasn’t harsh. Six noticed it usually bothered people either way, but he genuinely liked Vulpes’ benign scrutiny; it felt like an honor that few deserved.

“You NCR citizens have such polarized views on romance,” he said in his lilting eloquent casual tone. “There are connotations to the words you use that don’t quite fit how I feel.”

“Would you kill a man for touching her?” Six asked.

Instantly, his mind’s eye flashed to Lanius.

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.

“Yeah, so you love her,” the Courier corrected with a snort.

“To keep property is to protect it,” Vulpes explained. What he really wanted to say was that Aleah or no Aleah, the desire to dispatch Lanius existed. She just made it worse. He would keep that to himself though, as the Courier didn’t seem to have feelings toward Lanius either way. “Do you want to identify with my own experiences because you think they will make you feel less alone? Comforting as it is, you’re also avoiding ownership by deflecting to me, which is a waste of both our time. Go after what you want, you’ve done it plenty of times before.”

“Jeez, alright, I’ll do it,” the Courier said as he chewed on that statement for a second. Then he chuckled. “Hunh. Who’d’a thought Vulpes Inculta would be head-shrinking Courier Six? And for such a modest fee!”

By now, they’d stopped short of the lobby of the hotel. Their conversation was interesting, but too sensitive for either of them to venture outside the doors with it. “Well then, d’ya wanna try and guess who my ‘Aleah’ is?”

Guessing was a favored pastime of Vulpes’ but he seldom had to do so; people were painfully obvious most of the time. Still, he stared at the Courier evenly; he’d already surmised that it had to be one of his followers otherwise he wouldn’t have enough context to be asked to guess. He’d seen him with a few of them back when he trailed him for some time, and only heard of the others: the mutant was a moot point unless the Courier wasn’t the revered and respectable warrior they thought, the ghoul didn’t seem like his type, from what he knew of the other human, female mechanic, the Courier wasn’t her type (although that may be the source of his issue), and the NCR sniper couldn’t have been kept around long when the Courier learned of his fierce allegiance to the Bear… though being on opposite warring sides was a recurring theme in pre-war literary history.

Unless he saved his affections for robots or cyber-dogs, that left only the drunk and the doctor, a fifty-fifty chance. Add to that, that he left the drunk behind at the Outpost shortly after taking her on, and he spent several week’s in the medic’s company, even going so far as to bring him to the Legion on a mission once, where Vulpes met him. There was a palpable chemistry between the two. The medic it was, then.

In reality, only a few seconds passed while Vulpes deduced his answer.

“The good doctor. He speaks Latin as well. He would make delightful company here,” he proposed.

“He sure would,” Six agreed, eyes far away in thought. “’Cept y’all scared him shitless. I almost ran after him… but I made my choice. I made the Legion priority.”

If the Courier expected sympathy, there would be none. If the doctor didn’t understand, then he should give up his lovesick fantasy and move on, make him understand, or claim him without caring if he did. Inculta said none of this aloud, the Courier already knew.

“Well,” Six continued, “we’ll see what happens I guess.”

The two ended their stroll and their conversation on the vague note, shuffling out into the desert sun. They parted ways and Vulpes, now solitary, wondered if he did ‘love’ Aleah. The thought was premature at best and he wondered why the Courier, outside of his misplaced relating to the situation, was so interested. it was all very strange. 

Aleah had only been there a few days... but the spy's interest did stew over a period of months. Vulpes considered then what it must look like to the Courier and the others: just after the battle, he used valuable Legion resources to cross the Mojave and transport this woman, one he'd also gone to great lengths to secure in Vegas when it was under the rule of Mr. House, but she slipped from his reach. Now she was here and he seemed less distracted.

He knew they had a deep, chemical connection he’d been trying to figure out with philosophy and other sciences as tools while they were apart, but the pre-war concept of romance never once crossed his mind because it seemed trite.

There were aspects of the definition of the idea that worked: devotion was surely one of them. Vexation in her absence was another symptom. But the line of thought would have to wait as there was work to do. Before he could think any more on it, Cato and Alerio appeared in the distance, at the ready for a briefing on their remote assignments to the northwest and far west respectively, in the coming weeks. Alerio was to retrieve an updated report on NCR strength in the region surrounding the Hub and Cato would be tasked with meeting with Picus for a status update in Shady Sands. The three men disappeared into the Tops to discuss the plans further, and with the seeds of thought Six planted in Vulpes’ mind, the increased focus Caesar harped on had become much thinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Tis the month of giving (well, for some of us) so give feedback on my garbage lol


	29. Cat Got Your Tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vulpes loses his voice and Beatrix gains hers.

[Vegas, September 7th]

 

Vulpes Inculta was a man who valued efficiency, utility and a good work ethic, which was something he reminded himself of in order to maintain a sense of responsibility… and to keep from spending all of his time between the legs of his new acquisition.

He also valued these qualities in his capture; thus, both to cultivate them in her and to keep her occupied during the day (as well as out of his reach when he should be working himself), he installed Aleah into the Vegas encampment’s slave workforce, putting to use her seamster skills with the other slaves that created textiles and Legion garbs. She didn’t adjust very well to the amount of physical labor expected of her, it seemed. Or perhaps she did, but instead of coming home to rest like she needed, she came home to emotional labor instead.

Example being, one day he took her to be branded. It was just a few days post Aleah’s Vegas arrival and the night before she started her work detail.

On that day in the sweltering Vegas sun, Aleah, with frenzied eyes and spittle settled in the corners of her mouth, struggled against a cage of sturdy Legion arms. Her eyes met her new master’s and she pleaded in abject horror, to no end.

Then the smoke of her flesh and skin curled into her nostrils, the intensity dulled only by a curdling scream and even that was so fierce she couldn’t sustain it beyond a few seconds. It cut short with a hoarse choke and the arms let her deadweight sink to the dirt as Vulpes stood some feet away watching the angry bright pink X disappear behind salves and swathes of bandages. Minima and another captive woman applied the strips and murmured their futile comforts to the writhing dancer and he remained behind them planted in the ground like oak, willing the emotion from his features. His façade was strong as concrete; still it was a façade. He’d inflicted pain on her but this… this ate at his core.

One of the only people in the Legion that grew numb to the sights and sounds of the branding custom was the slave brander himself, because his mind involuntarily shut it out years ago. The screams and stench deterred even the Legion’s most dedicated sadists after witnessing a round or two; Vulpes himself kept away because the smell of cooked flesh brought back floods of memories from his early youth, of piles of diseased bodies burned on pyres. It was one of the reasons he preferred to limit his warfare tactics to crucifixions, radiation and the use of acids unless he sent someone else in to use fire—though Nipton was such an extreme case it forced his hand.

It seemed the only one truly unbothered by brandings over the years was the Imperator who implemented the callous practice. It was Caesar who insisted on being audience to Aleah’s branding, not sickened nor numb, but fascinated, almost satisfied instead. The epitome of a feather, he turned to his protégé.

“Shall the priestesses see to her re-education?” he asked with a lighthearted smile. She gurgled in the background weakly.

Vulpes hadn’t looked away from his charge; for the first time ever, Caesar couldn’t hear the melodic undertone to his voice. His words poured out like rocks.

“I will see to it myself.”

“I trust in your skill. And her name? Has it been chosen yet?”

“Aglaea.”

Caesar _tsk_ ed with a grin wholly inappropriate to the occasion but there was no one to tell him so.

“One of the Gratiae? How fitting! But by the gods do you spoil her! So close to her dead name that she will hardly know the difference after a week. You’re turning out to be a milder master than I expected, Vulpes,” the Imperator gently chided. “I hope this softness is only perceived, or at least temporary.”

It was sloppily placed bait that Vulpes would not take; Caesar’s game was to test the limits of his most trusted friends and to pass was to endure—only Lanius’ provocation was amusing to him since ferocity was his trademark. Lucius and Vulpes were expected to play into their respective roles of hardiness and composure.

“I have the Arizonian unit status reports you requested for the meeting this evening,” the spy changed the subject, voice clear and low as he watched Aleah being helped to her feet. Her eyes were red and glazed over and even though she was conscious, she wasn’t responding to the whispers Minima directed at her. Aleah was in so much pain that she struggled to walk and as much as she tried to support her, Minima was a waif of a woman. The other enslaved woman joined her and they hobbled away at a pitiful pace. The men who held her before moved on to the next captive on the branding block.

“Ah yes, that reminds me! I was hoping to send out a scout this week to Shady Sands, I’d like a status report on that too, as I…” Caesar spouted, blithely unaware one was en route already as of the day before like they’d discussed days ago—the tumor was gone but his memory would never be the same. There simply was no besting old age. As for his lack of delicacy, that was something that existed for as long as the spy could remember, it just never affected him until quite recently.

Since he already knew the details, Vulpes took the opportunity to drown him out and focused all of his faculties into willing his body not to dash in Aleah’s direction and carry to her to the suite himself. There would be no satisfying the unanticipated but instinctive urge to comfort her, not in front of subordinates and _especially_ not in front of the Imperator. He looked at a guard that waited nearby and wished in that moment he had the ability to communicate psychically.

 _Help her, you fool,_ he thought. There was no psychic link, but the divines smiled on him this day. Or more likely, the look on his face must have been something fierce because the sentry looked over to meet the spy’s eyes and not two seconds later, scrambled to assist the party of three.

So Aleah disappeared into the old Freeside entrance gates with the others while Vulpes stood there listening to Caesar go on and on about things that were already done, afflicted with a feeling the spy had never known in his adult life before this moment: futility.

Face composed now, he merely swallowed.

“Are you listening to a word I’m saying?” the older man growled.

“Your requests are being seen to as we speak,” he explained, deadpan. “Cato was dispatched to NCR City yesterday.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say so sooner?” Caesar demanded, scowl growing.

Silently Vulpes asked himself the same question. But he couldn’t tell his leader that the redundant conversation was the only thing that kept him from running off to comfort his captive. No, that wouldn’t do. Actually, he couldn’t tell him anything… because he had no response. Yet another unsettling affliction in the last few minutes.

Caesar’s face clouded over with concern as he too noticed this.

“What, you don’t like that she was branded?” he asked, somewhat astonished. When he looked at him, Vulpes’ face was almost even but he couldn’t erase all traces of the tension there: his eyes were a very dark grey. Mentally noting that, Caesar continued. “It must be done to any high value slave, you know that. She’ll heal and you’ll forget it. Just make sure to keep the dressings clean so that she does not succumb to infection— what a waste that would be… especially considering the resources she’s diverged from Legion affairs, your attention included.”

“Indeed,” Vulpes finally said, picking up on the silent threat.

Caesar finished by touching his shoulder in a fatherly way.

“I know she is your first possession, but it’s never good to get so attached. There are always more captives available. Remember where your respect and your loyalties lie.”

The Imperator left the spy behind to dwell on his words.

  


**

 

 

[Shady Sands, September 7th – 10th]

It took around three days from her being brought into to the followers for Beatrix Russell to become responsive.

When she began to stir, Julie Farkas handed her a pen and a pad, pressing for information on what happened, and she wrote only what she could remember, which is that they were travelling when some mercenaries jumped them, then she woke up here alone.

Afterward, several doctors and guards alike that worked with her rushed over throughout the day to welcome her back to the world of the living and conscious, including one Arcade Gannon and Orris, who was somewhat upset about the lack of helpful information. With tears in her eyes, she accepted hugs and gentle caresses from old friends, and even from a few patients from Vegas that stuck around as volunteers to pay forward the protection they received while traveling to Shady Sands. 

One touching display in particular was from a woman named Carissa that she'd watched over carefully when she'd first come to the Followers struggling with a Rebound addiction. Carissa told Beatrix that she couldn't do this to herself and her daughter anymore, and she wanted to get clean to be a better provider for her child, and Beatrix shared her own experiences with the woman about addiction, which were plenty given her age. She hadn’t thought much of it but apparently whatever she shared was inspiring because now that very child stood at the foot of Beatrix's bed with a small potted and flowering agave succulent. With a smile, Carissa gently urged her daughter forward, and the child ceremoniously presented Beatrix with the plant.

"For you, ma'am," she said. Then, she added, "it has a lot prickles on it, just like you have a lot of spots on you."

Carissa blanched, ready to pull the child to the side and let her know that it wasn't a very nice thing to say, but the girl continued.

"And the prickles make the plant fancy, just like your spots make you fancy!" she added with a brilliant smile. The ghoul, whose wet eyes shifted between the girl and her parent, was at a loss for words (and would have been in incredible pain if she were to speak anyway). The girl firmly and proudly placed the pot into her hand and a moment afterward, Beatrix scribbled onto the writing pad she was given by a doctor to express herself in the meantime. The girl took the sheet and read the words in elegant handwriting aloud.

"'Thank… you… so… much.' Thank YOU miss. You helped my mama so much!" 

The child hugged the ghoul gently and then scampered back to her mother, who also thanked Beatrix and told her to get some rest.

It took around two days after her regaining consciousness, for Beatrix's levels to get to a point where Julie Farkas felt comfortable enough to send her to surgery. It was not Farkas's specialty so she outsourced to Doctor Usanagi, the woman who'd run the clinic in New Vegas before the Legion takeover. She'd opened up shop in Shady Sands but let the Followers know she would be available for a favor here and there, but only a few. She performed the surgery on Beatrix, reconstructing the damaged tissues in the ghoul's throat with expertise and adding new parts where necessary.

"You won't be able to speak as loudly or yell as you could before unless you put in much more effort, since the scar tissue there will impede your chords' ability to vibrate," Dr. Usanagi told her once she came to, after the procedure. "But the upside is that I was able to put in an implant to allow you to speak again. Your 'natural' voice will be a little smoother and higher pitched from now on, and you'll also have the ability to mimic most voices within a certain range, so do with that whatever you wish. Give it a rest for today and try out your new voice in the morning."

And then the doctor was off, headed back to her own paying patients.

The next morning, when Dr. Gannon came to check on the ghoul, she greeted him and he did a double take.

"Wow, Dr. Usanagi wasn’t lying... that is _very_ different," he commented.

"You're telling me!" she said with growing enthusiasm. It even felt different inside her chest. "I sound like some sultry smoothskin."

"Can you try singing?" the doctor asked, unable to hide his growing curiosity.

"I guess. What do I sing?"

"Hmm... Try 'Mad About the Boy?'" he suggested.

The sound that came from the ghoul was so velvety smooth and in such perfect pitch that Arcade's jaw dropped. Beatrix looked embarrassed. 

"Was it that bad?"

"Uh, I think you've got a career in showbiz ahead of you," he told her.

"Ha," the ghoul chuckled to herself once. Then Arcade laughed. Then she sang another song, “Johnny Guitar” in perfect pitch and quality, to his astonishment—it was as if the chanteuse stepped out of the radio for an intimate live performance. Then she tried out a few impressions of voices of folks they knew from Freeside. Her impression of Julie was spot on and they laughed together so hard that she'd begun to cry. She couldn't believe it. She was sure she was going to die out there in the desert and now she was safe and among friends, and had a new voice. Corinne would love to—

_"Shit."_

Beatrix kept forgetting that Aleah and Corinne had been abducted by the mercenaries. It came back like a slap in the face every time. The expletive sounded odd in her pleasant new voice.

"What is it?" Gannon pressed. "Are you in pain?"

"My friends. They were abducted by some assholes. I just don't know who."

"Legion, you think?"

"Could be, but I didn't see anything before I was shot. Don't know why they'd be after us specifically."

"Three women traveling? If not Legion, they were probably raider-slavers, looking to trade slaves to the Legion for supplies. I mean, there's little be done about the attack, since the NCR has their hands full and even if the Followers did enforce the law, obviously the Legion doesn't subscribe to NCR policy. I hope they weren't, for your friends' sake."

Beatrix didn't say anything, she just looked sick enough to make the doctor backtrack.

"But I'm sure you'll be able to find them and bring them back! Maybe..."

"I really got a feeling now that those men were Legion. Right before the attack, we heard something on the radio about the Legion being in that area anyhow, on their way here. The boys who grabbed ‘em wouldn’t have made it through what was Legion territory if they weren’t one of them. I've got to do something."

"So... just to clarify: you want to go _to_ the nation of slaving, crucifying, rapist imperialists with thousands of men with little regard for human life, unmutated and mutated alike, to find two women abducted days ago?"

Beatrix stared at him and rolled her eyes.

"Yes, I'm aware of how wild it sounds."

"Just making sure. Well, there are other concerned parties," he enlightened her. "Orris has been a mess, bothering me everyday about you before you woke up. Maybe, and only maybe, once you're well enough and if all of the doctors here give you the go ahead, we MIGHT be able to gather a small search party for you to investigate."

The ghoul's features sparkled with excitement and hope.

"And by small, I mean entirely consisting of you and Orris and any other fool you all can convince to go with you," Arcade added.

She looked at him poignantly and recognition dawned on the doctor's face.

"Oh no, no no no. I said a fool, not me."

"Arcade, please. We'll need a doctor. We don't know what kinda condition they'll be in," Beatrix pressed. Arcade shook his head.

"Absolutely not. I'm not gonna hand myself over to the Legion along with you. I'll probably be executed on site for my degenerate reputation!" he exclaimed. The ghoul raised her brows. "The... Courier and I may have traveled together for a bit. Before I knew he was a Legion apologist and eventual full-on supporter-slash-recruit, of course! But he... he knows things about me that I don't think he'd mind sharing if we're captured. I even went with him to see Caesar once for what I thought were shits and giggles, until I realized he was serious as a heart attack. To hear about it is one thing, but I got out of there really quick when I saw firsthand how they treated people.”

"So you think it's a death sentence?"

“Yes.” The look on the ghoul’s face made him backtrack again. "Well, not one hundred percent, but given that we don't even know for sure if these mercenaries brought the women to the Legion in the first place and we could get there and find nothing but crosses or a life of servitude cut tragically short by suicide, the chances look to be around…" he paused for effect. She looked at him confusedly. "Ninety eight point nine percent chance of death."

"C'mon, Arcade. We need you..." she pushed. "Plus, you would only have to deal with two slightly annoying people instead'a dozens of annoying people each day. Please. There are folks here that care but only you have the medical, investigative and combat skill to not be dead weight. Anyone else leaving would put the safety of this place at risk. You've been to the Fort, and you speak Latin, right? You probably know more about them than anyone here. I'll beg, I'll sing any song you wanna hear all along the way, I'll do impressions of that swanky guy from the Tops you used to make heart eyes at, I'll--"

"Okay, okay. Fine," Gannon huffed, shaking his head. He sat on a chair in the corner of her tent, elbows on knees. He sat for some seconds muttering under his breath in cold sweat. "What am fucking doing? I'll do it. _Fuck._ Okay, I'll help."

"Thank you, Arcade! Thank you so much."

"His name was Benny, by the way,” Arcade said. Beatrix, who was already making plans in her head, quirked her patchy eyebrows. “The guy I quote ‘made heart eyes at,’ his name was Benny. Important point of clarification since there’s someone actually at the Tops named Swank. Or there was before this shit storm. And he wasn’t nearly so suave. But the Courier killed Benny…”

Arcade grimaced.

“Not that he didn’t deserve it,” he said, then sighed almost wistfully. “Is it weird to have a lingering crush on a dead man?”

"Hell, most of the people I’ve crushed on’re dead," she reminded him, then laughed. “Doesn’t mean I don’t still wish I could drop my panties for ‘em.”

The doctor laughed weakly too, then clammed up when he remembered he may have just signed his own death certificate and could be joining Benny soon anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a thing for Vulpes fucking with people's shit, hence this story. However, I may have now developed a thing for people fucking with Vulpes' too, some sort of payback fantasy. I keep thinking the only person who has the power to really check him would be Caesar and now that he thinks his favorite spy might actually start seeing a captive as a human being, well that's no good!
> 
> Also my babyghoul is back and better than ever! Just with a few extra holes in her skin. I'm really excited. I know I'm the author lol but I'm still excited! I know Arcade crushing on Benny isnot canon but hey, Bethesda ain't paying me to color in the lines.
> 
> Would love thoughts of any variety.


	30. Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes, feelings don't. Oh, and Latin lessons!

[Vegas, September 8th – 22nd]

 

Twilight used to be Aleah’s favorite time of the day. Around twilight at the Atomic Wrangler, she or Corinne would be done with their crier or server shifts they swapped on, and there was a chunk that overlapped with the window of time before Beatrix would take nighttime clients, and they’d sit around a table and have a sad excuse for a meal together. But dinner wasn’t about what they ate, it was about the company and conversation. Her meals with them were brimming with laughter and light and love, and at least once a week someone would inevitably send Sunset Sarsaparilla shooting out of her nose because something someone else said was _that_ hilarious.

The evening meal was very different for Aleah now, the part of the day she wished would never come. There was no laughter, no love, no light. And if the bastard Vulpes Inculta thought she would answer to her new ‘name,’ he could forget it.

She dined with Vulpes in the Tops presidential suite conference room at the same time each night after her shift—well, ‘dine’ for lack of a better word. Dinner for Week 1 was mostly Vulpes slowly enjoying measured bites of his food and Aleah pretending not to be nauseous in his presence, and hunger-striking as protest. She would fight off the pain of hunger for as long as she could to put off going to bed with him and when they did go to bed, she would angle herself away, refusing to face him at all times lest even a look tempt him to touch her.

Even though he could have if he really wanted to, Vulpes didn’t make any advances and he ignored the strike until, by the third night, her body gave in either to hunger or exhaustion or both, making her collapse head first into her plate. For this he merely eyed her with a miffed expression and sent her to bed early, but she was disciplined more astutely by another, in the form of a thrashing she got from the watchman for fainting on her shift the next day.

Vulpes himself didn’t like to regularly make points with physical violence but something had to be done to make her comply, especially since it caused her work performance to suffer. The next night Aleah seemed to debate avoiding her plate in protest again, so instead of picking up his fork and knife, he locked eyes with her and smiled before placing a large, serrated combat knife onto the table as incentive, fingers curling ominously around the grip. She finished her meal in record time.

As for duties and role, Vulpes prepared the meals for the first week before expressing they would switch off on who would handle the prep from then on, and to her reluctant surprise Aleah inwardly admitted that (when she actually ate it) Legion food quality was genuinely better than she was used to. Vegas had luxury food for those with luxury budgets but the pre-war delights she could afford, like potato crisps and Salisbury steaks, were looked at in the Legion with little more regard than chems. The soldiers valued fresh protein and crisp produce and the highest quality went to the highest in rank—of course Vulpes was fourth in succession.

As yet another form of insubordination, Aleah considered ruining the dinner routine by deliberately preparing the worst meals she could manage, but aside from her fear that he’d punish her, she would have to eat it too, and also she felt that it would be wrong to waste perfectly good food, especially when animal sacrifice was involved. She also worked daily with other captive women who had no choice in being underfed and felt foolish thinking of the food she refused when she locked with their sunken eyes.

On his end, Vulpes came to terms with the fact that he might not have thought through all of the facets her captivity. Dinnertime began to illuminate a problem that he created and must now solve. Sure, he was capable of attaining, housing, protecting, assuring medical care and putting her to work of some sort, but the most pivotal thing still must be tended to: avoiding the permanent alienation of his captive. Her physical appearance and their complementary sexual tendencies aside, what hooked him from the start was… Aleah’s energy on stage, her _praesentia_ or _essentia._ Outside of helping him form his lineage in the future, her energy was the main reason she was there and for Aleah to continue to provide him that very thing, he would have to make some effort at establishing a less hostile environment. Within the first few weeks, he practiced restraint to a new level and took her sparingly to avoid forcing the lock. Still, given all the transpired already, he was far in the red.

One would be hard pressed to find a Legionary that couldn’t say it was difficult to domesticate a profligate without tearing them down emotionally, and if they were pushed too hard, they would become mere husks of people. The officers that took Legion-born wives didn’t have quite the same problem because women raised by the priestesses were usually accustomed, and those who took tribal captive wives tended to be in it only for the physical part, so they were fine with breaking their captives entirely. This left him with no one to ask of advice on how to get her to respond to him without of the threat of assault.

Some nights Vulpes would watch her eat (or not eat before he solved that problem) and inwardly weigh the pros and cons of starting a conversation before ultimately coming back to the obvious fact that she would not want to talk to him about anything. And when he watched her, Aleah would not meet his eyes, some nights out of defiance, others because he was just too goddamned intense for her to deal with.

He surmised it would just take time. And smaller efforts to not be so… stony on his part, perhaps.

So Vulpes offered to help her with her Latin over dinner one night the next week. Aleah seemed to be in a neutral mood, all things considered.

“Minima reports that you are learning vocabulary well but that you struggle with conjugation and declensions,” he tried, eyes softer than usual. “The priestess that oversaw my language education was one of the most accomplished and dedicated, and taught me everything she knew. It would benefit you to use the resources you have available.”

Though disappointed, he wasn’t surprised when she declined with silence. Naturally he had a backup plan but he wasn’t too excited to have to use it, since her lessons were supposed to be a segue into getting the two of them on speaking terms. Another threat would be a notch against him in her book.

“Each night, you will report to me at least three new vocabulary words that you have learned or one new verb and its conjugated form… or receive a beating in their place,” Vulpes commented casually as if he discussed the weather, taking a sip of water. Aleah’s brown eyes landed on him, latent with apprehension. “How you learn those words is up to you.”

For the dancer, it was now clear that her cold behavior was thinning his patience and her choices were to pretend to tolerate this man enough to speak to and learn from him, or to be beaten. Aleah thought of the many other Legion captives and the kinds of ‘choices’ they were given, and felt foolish yet again. Weeks ago they would not have mattered as much, but after seeing some of the things she had, she really had it easy compared to most of them. But does it matter that some caged animals are kicked while others are petted, if they all should be in the wild?

She cleared her throat after a few seconds.

“Where do we begin?” she inquired blandly, and he smiled with warmth.

As Aleah complied, Vulpes rewarded her with many new words to try out during the day, careful not to simply translate but to actually form lingering associations by presenting her with items, naming them and using adjectives with gestures to describe them so she could learn through context, as well as having her write them on paper. He demonstrated some words with items around the suite, but once they’d run out of interesting options, he began to bring new items home.

When its residents fled, much of the debris left behind in the Tops were their belongings, moved to the basement because there was nowhere else to put them and with the cool season coming, more recruits would be allowed to inhabit the rooms. It took little effort for Vulpes to find an ornate compact mirror that he presented to Aleah to teach her the word _cogitatio,_ or “reflection _._ ”

“[You may keep it,]” he told her, loosely translating to English after. “It is yours, if you want it.”

Aleah took it reticently. She wanted a new compact like this for a year now since her last one broke: that happened just as she’d begun applying a new lipstick acquired from Mick and Ralph’s one day, when a boy chasing a rat knocked it right from her hand and it was destroyed and she thought she would never be able to admire herself with mobile convenience again. Now, she admired the floral engraving on the little golden circle with wonder for a split second then caught herself, sobering her expression. Vulpes had already seen her eyes light up though, and felt a swelling in his chest for a split second before sobering himself as well.

That night Aleah decided she would allow herself to have something nice, even if the person who gave it to her was the scum of the earth.

The next morning, Vulpes noticed a pleasant surprise: it was in a drawer with some of her other cosmetic belongings and not in the garbage can like he expected. Later on it was in a different spot in the drawer, meaning she took it out to admire and returned it. This pleased him.

As a result, the next night Vulpes was in high spirits when they had dinner and the lesson, as he had a plan up his sleeve. It was his turn to prepare the food so while he did, he let her rest after her shift, brewing fresh herbal tea for the both of them. The more prepared he was and the more relaxed she was, the more infectious his charisma would be, and the better his chances were to thaw his unwilling pupil, so he would be generous tonight. He even gave her an option to spike the tea. After all, could she resist him after a particularly tasty meal and a modest drink?

At the table Aleah eyed the tall bottle of contraband skeptically, wondering if now Legion officers had different permissions than the general recruits, but he politely refused the addition of vodka to his own tea. Was she being rewarded for her participation? She also had a thought that this might be a horrible profligacy test that she was dangerously close to failing because Gods she would _love_ a drink after the last few weeks. It was not though, and she enjoyed a glass of vodka-spiked sweetened tea whose flavor she could not put her finger on, but it went over well with the plate of iguana bits sautéed with fresh potatoes.

Once their plates were empty and put away, they sat in the suite vestibule and Vulpes began to teach her several new words: the first was _aurum_ , which he communicated by holding the floral compact and comparing it to a golden denarius from his pocket. Aleah guessed “gold” from the context and received commensurate praise, something that she would never admit consciously she looked forward to.

He pointed to the etched petals on the lid of the compact now, tracing them. Another word:

_“Flos.”_

_“Flos,”_ Aleah repeated earnestly. Vulpes left the room for a few seconds and reappeared in the doorway.

“Close your eyes and stand up, Aglaea,” he commanded. She complied but her heart thumped angrily in its cage. She could hear him coming back to the sofa, and the footfalls were obviously for effect because she could only recall him moving soundlessly before tonight. They were paced and measured, and she didn’t know what to expect next.

“Hold out your hand.”  


She did. Something light and fuzzy landed on her palm.

“You may open them now,” he said softly.

In her hand Aleah found a flower, one she vaguely recognized. It was yellow with five rounded petals and a yellow-green stamen. She blinked a couple times and maybe it was the vodka or her instincts but she felt compelled to sniff it deeply. It smelled familiar, and she realized the scent was the same as their tea. Vulpes watched her with glittering eyes as she studied the plant.  


“I may have seen this before… out in the desert, heh,” she said, sniffing it again and rubbing the soft petals against the skin of her lips. It wasn’t very strong but she was still beginning to feel the buzz from her drink and it was lovely.

 _“_ Yes, it grows in the southwestern parts the Wasteland, valued for its many medicinal properties. Reportedly much more effective since the Great war,” Vulpes’ tongue curled around his words while he still stood. “It is called _Turnera diffusa.”_

“That’s a mouthful,” Aleah said, prompting one reserved chuckle from her captor.

Next up was _pulchritudo,_ a word which he demonstrated by opening the compact and facing it toward her in her palm. She repeated the word aloud and frowned.

“I can’t figure it out,” she confessed, looking in the mirror for clues on her face. They’d already worked on facial features and some colors before tonight, so it must be something else but nothing had changed in her reflection. Was it the word for curly? she wondered.

Vulpes smiled as he slowly circled and stood behind her in their reflection. He was very, _very_ close and her senses were heightened in response, maybe more than usual… vodka might not have been the best idea. She could feel the heat rolling off his body.

“Beauty.”

Then he winked, that same striking gesture he shot her from the audience before her Legion performance, and the one that came out the first night in his suite before he invaded her mouth, the one that sparked a tingle through her spine and made her gut flop around like a crazed fish for so many confusing, conflicting and annoying reasons.

Aleah swallowed, eyes large and body rigid. She was so attuned to his closeness that the now familiar scent of him swirled maddeningly about in her nose, translating into two distinct but permanently intertwined signals: attraction, danger.

Vulpes nestled his nose into her neck and took her hand in his to teach the last word. From behind he guided her palm back to his hip and toward the center of his firm abdomen and lower, lower until her stomach dropped almost painfully. The hard outline of his sex was tangible through the garment and it contracted once, to which her own loins responded uncomfortably. He muttered low into her ear.

_“Cupere.”_

Frustrated, alarmed and buzzed, her breath faltered and the word didn’t really register. Vulpes’ hand released hers and his arms snaked around to land on her belly now. His lips nudged just under her ear and left a kiss there along with a burning whisper: _“_ Desire. _”_

Aleah’s knees buckled and she whimpered, leaning in to him; he had not expected that, but perhaps the tea had worked. But just as soon as she did this she moved away, dashing from the room. The growing bulge below his waist twitched again, beckoning him to go after her… but the spy ultimately decided against it. He may have made progress tonight and that would surely ruin it.

Instead Vulpes busied himself with returning the vocab items to their places and a little bit of reading The Philosophy of Chrysippus, letting time and distance wash away the heat until it was safe to approach the bedroom.

Aleah was already in bed under the blankets but he could sense she was awake. He also sensed her turn incrementally toward him with curiosity but look away as he stripped, trying to be inconspicuous. The air felt different he mused, turning out the overhead light. Vulpes went to bed savoring it and the taste of sweet tea on his tongue.  
           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's your present, you kind patient readers. After lots of raw writing, thinking ideas are no good, revisions, then adding them back, wash-rinse-repeat, another chapter is here. Feel free to check me on my Latin vocab!
> 
> And Vulpes, good ol' master of manipulation. I'll be trying some of that tea myself though, I've read some good things...


	31. Men, Omen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vulpes' nature threatens to return while Lanius' threatens to adapt.

**Sep 23 - Vegas**

_“Amor et melle et felle est fecundissimus…”_ -Titus Maccius Plautus.  
  


**  
  
Vulpes sat in the audience of the Aces theater. He was in his dapper gambler suit, hat upon his lap, and on the table where his elbow rested, there was a glass of water. There were others seated nearby, but they were faceless cattle, voices melting into a low buzz. The stage was dark and the audience awaited a performer; Vulpes was so stricken with anticipation that he couldn’t clap as the curtains slid back.

Aleah the Eight was revealed in the spotlight, smile luminescent and body glittering in blood red sequins from bust to toe and a fluffy boa. Like she often did, Aleah swirled the boa around playfully, face carefree with laughter, but no sound came out. There was no music as she floated gracefully around the stage; she was a silent film in Technicolor.

A man wearing a gambler suit and hat in the front row stood, back to the audience, and lit by the spotlight while he advanced to the stage. Vulpes knew his intentions were no good, but Aleah didn’t even seem to notice him. Stuck in his seat, he called out to warn the smiling dancer, but she couldn’t hear him. He tried yelling at the man, but he was on stage now, grabbing Aleah and wrestling her to the ground. Finally Vulpes could hear her as she screamed, and he could see the man look up and in his direction, and his own blue-grey eyes reflected back to him. Then the man smiled his own smile at him—it was him.

Vulpes looked down, becoming the man on top of Aleah. He tore her clothes off until she was a naked heap beneath him, and the Legionaries in the crowd of the ring now surrounding them cheered him on. In the distance he could see Lucius, Alerio and Caesar, even Lanius, seated and viewing the spectacle. Apparently in his sparring clothes, he tore them off and held the length of his erection in his palm and grabbed his prize by the hair with the other hand, ignoring her pleas.

“Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret, Vulpes,” Caesar said, smiling and clapping.

Vulpes shoved her legs back and spread her open, smelling her deeply at her core, then he fucked Aleah the Eight in the middle of the arena at the Fort before hundreds of spectators, until all sounds and images bled away and all that remained was her in the dirt looking up at him, tears in her eyes.

“Please,” she begged softly, then she gasped in both pleasure and pain. “I’m yours. You know I’m yours.”

“I know,” he replied, hand closing around her neck.

Then Vulpes awoke.

Like usual it was before the sunrise, a testament to years of routine. He lingered a moment on the dream, letting his heart rate settle. Then there was the usual minute or two he spent perfectly still, assessing his surroundings for threats, significant environmental changes, etc., a testament to his training and the mild paranoia that just comes with being a spy. All he found was Aleah at his side, turned toward him. She was unconscious still, but this was a first and should be viewed with significance, so he noted that. He also found that the softness of the Vegas bed wasn't sitting too well with his spine anymore and made another note to grab a bedroll from the Vegas requisitions officer.

He left the bed, careful not to stir Aleah, and on it he left a note that she could take the day off. After, he was ready and out the door by 6 AM on the dot for his regular eight mile run.

  
**  
  
The Legate Lanius was a foe not to be reckoned with. He seldom had the problem of his adversaries underestimating him, but that was the case with his prowess in physical combat and the effectiveness of his straightforward battle tactics. They did underestimate his ability to evolve, however. No one would expect him to lie in wait for weeks as another man toyed with what he wanted for himself. But that's just what he did.

Even the Centurion Felix attested to this, surprised at the giant’s restraint. When he relayed word to Lanius that Aleah was employed among the textilers who worked within the Old Mormon fort, he expected him to march over there that moment and fuck her bloody, putting on his own show for anyone who stuck around. Instead, Lanius set off one step like he would, and stopped, grunting like a bull. Then he balled his fists and went back to the chair he’d been seated in. When a curious and amused Felix looked at him, Lanius scoffed. 

“Continue to look at me like that and I’ll pluck your eyes out,” he threatened. Felix fought a smile but looked away all the same. 

“I’m just surprised, that’s all,” Felix told him. “I expected a different reaction.”

The Legate sneered. 

“The most powerful evolve, you said. I’ve taken to heart some of the counsel you insist on plying me with,” he explained. “I don’t plan to just take her. I plan to keep her--"

"For as long as she'd last with you," Felix cut in. Lanius glared at him and he bowed his head. 

"The bastard Vulpes will weasel himself into Caesar’s head and into my way if he is here when I do try to take her. He has too many moles, word will spread. He’d be there in minutes.”

Felix nodded. “He is wealthy with allies. You must wait.”

“I am waiting,” Lanius snapped, irritated at lack of gratification in general more than at his comrade. Felix smiled wryly.

“He’ll be likely to go skulking undercover again somewhere, I’m sure.”

“Indeed.”

“But he’ll be expecting others to encroach on his territory in his absence,” Felix warned. “He’ll make arrangements.”

“Let him. I’m prepared. I do not wait out of fear of retaliation. I wait so that he cannot appeal to Caesar with his power of persuasion.” 

The Legate was loyal to one person only, and that was Caesar; that loyalty wasn’t equally reciprocated, however. While Caesar had investments in each of the men closest to him in succession because he handpicked them all, he had a particular fondness for Vulpes Inculta. He played a large part in the young man’s upbringing. It was out of sheer respect for his leader that Lanius hadn’t disposed of the worm already-- and the security of his position. He might be the Legate, but angering Caesar by killing his favorite pet unprovoked would be unwise. 

The Frumentarius must be far away so that it would take considerable time for word to get to him about Lanius moving on his prize, and by the time of his return, Lanius planned to have convinced to Caesar allow a duel for propriety which would be the only acceptable way for him to eliminate the Frumentarius. The leader would be too delighted for bloodsport to resist. Once he returned, if he did, Lanius would challenge Inculta. His honor would be his suicide. His second Alerio would become the unit leader and while that would not result in any major benefits, Alerio had no interest in the slave.

“I will take the slave Aleah when next he leaves for his work, and deal with him when he returns.”

"Then so be it."

The Legate grinned nastily behind his mask.

"So be it, indeed."

 

**  
  
Alerio returned to Vegas the night before with no news so important that it couldn't wait until the morning. He was ready to report at dawn; he met Vulpes on the Strip and they ran together as they tended to do when their schedules allowed. They began at the old Gun Runners outpost and ran counter clockwise in a circle around the gated parts, passing Camp McCarran first and eventually coming around to a few old raider hideouts. They sprinted in the usual comfortable silence until it was replaced with intelligence. 

"Anything worth reporting?" Vulpes asked finally. Alerio slowed his pace.

"The Hub is disgusting and dissolute, rife with corruption in all notable factions," Alerio started. "But it may work to our advantage. There's a significant raider population in the outskirts, Viper remnants, but they are under control...  for now. The Hub police are supported by the NCR but their resources are spread thin. Many major merchants and trader companies operate there, including the Crimson Caravan Company, and they are unhappy with trade regulations set by the NCR. Half of the caravan bosses have arrangements with the criminals there too. Otherwise, there's a small guild of thieves and the withered remains of criminal group called the Underground. Their leader was killed by a vault dweller some years back."

"Organized crime?" Vulpes asked.

"Of sorts. They believe they are organized, but what they do is child's play," he clarified. Then there was a subtle, devious smirk that reminded Vulpes that for his lack of outward emotion or ceremony, Alerio loved his job. "It is my firm belief that with careful sabotage timed over a month, possibly less, we could easily take the city."

Vulpes' eyebrows raised. 

"I assume you already have ideas in mind."

"The seed of discord was planted long ago, we need only reap the benefits," Alerio commented. He paused while they went around a pile of rubble with metal bars jutting from it. "We could plant word that the most prestigious company, Crimson Caravan is bringing in a valuable shipment, and encourage the thieves guild to pounce. The guild won't need to actually find anything, as long as they merely attack the caravans. And it wouldn't take much for an agent to inspire a riot among the general raiders. With proper guidance, they can reduce the police force significantly. By the time the guild acts, the police will already be overwhelmed by raiders  and unable to address trader safety, creating tension between the two factions."

Seeing the different gears of the plan click into place, Vulpes continued his second's statement. "Then as the Legion, we can set up a meeting between leaders of the trading companies and assure the safety and unrestricted operation of their routes, gaining their support and expanding our trade lines—"

"And cutting off the little resources the Hub Police have left, weakening them further," Alerio finished. "The Hub will not be able to withstand an assault from even a 10th of our men by that point, with the raiders weakening them."

Vulpes was grinning ear to ear now.

"And another lottery for the remaining criminals would tie up any loose ends," he suggested. 

"I thought you might feel that way. And I believe the Underground will take the bait, especially if we insinuate that winning would restore their former glory," Alerio said, looking his version of amused. 

"And as always, the dregs will destroy each other in the process," Vulpes promised. "Excellent work."

They were on their last lap around Vegas by now, and rounded back to the Freeside entrance, concluding the run. A flowering white horsenettle plant in the distance reminded Vulpes of the vocabulary session the night before, and in turn that he must acquire more of the  _Turnera diffusa_  in the long run _._ He didn't know how long he would need the herb but new trade routes might help that.

Alerio drank from a bottle of water before speaking again just as they entered the Freeside gate. "The operation could be executed successfully with three agents, preferably four."

"I will plan the finer details with you here, but entrust you with overseeing the plan in the field," his leader told him. 

"And you, miss the lottery?" the other man tempted.

Vulpes stopped in his tracks to consider it. 

"It would be a fine sight..." he said. Alerio nodded, watching him. It was too soon leave Aleah though, especially with last night's developments. He also had to wait for Cato's intelligence. "But I must stay here. We await Cato's return; he will act as Picus' proxy."

The second man gave a mild "mm" and sipped his water as he eyed Vulpes with an even expression. "Cato's report is the only reason?"

It was unlike Alerio to pry into his personal life. It was also unlike himself to take a backseat on such an ambitious project. In theory, he could just have a messenger inform him of Cato's return if he left.

"Well it's not official yet, but Shady Sands will likely be priority if they are weak enough to strike," Vulpes explained it away. "I will be needed here for immediate planning. Losing a day or two to travel could make the difference in the success of our tactics."

"Understood," Alerio replied. "Can you afford three agents? Perhaps the Courier would be of use as well." 

"I'll bring it to his attention."

The two Frumentarii were outside the gate to the Strip when horns began to blare in the distance, signaling the Legate's return to camp. After snapping toward the sound, Alerio rolled his eyes lightly. 

"Perhaps we should also require fanfare every time we return from a run," he said.

Vulpes left him an understated smirk. "One has to admire a man who is so dedicated to his lack of subtlety that he announces his every move."

"No," Alerio said. "I don't."

And that was why he was Vulpes' favorite. That and he didn't seem threatened by the mere presence of the Legate and his guard, who were approaching them now.

Four tall (but short in comparison to their leader) men surrounded Lanius in a square formation and the five of them stopped before the two Frumentarii. Three of the guard remained still while the front right spoke.

"You block the Legate's entrance to the Strip," he said. The spy recalled his name, Titus.

Neither he nor Alerio moved.

"His entry," Vulpes said.

"What about it?" Titus asked, staving off irritation. He might not like the weasel but Inculta was still his superior.

"You said his ' _entrance._ ' The Legate does not _own_ the entrance to the Strip, nor anything else nearby or within," Vulpes added, looking into the slits of the Legate's mask as he finished. Lanius' head tilted an increment. "But he is free to come or go as he pleases."

Everyone was silent, steadying their breath in the way they were taught for efficiency and planting their feet without moving them lest the movement tip another off. The seven men stood about for seconds, Lanius and Vulpes staring each other down and Alerio holding his own gaze against the four guardsmen, tension ready to cut by the Blade of the East resting on Lanius' back. Finally Vulpes stepped to the side and Alerio, who'd been gripping a blade behind his back the whole time, also sidestepped not a split second after; it looked it was coordinated.

The Legate and his guard proceeded without another word or glance in their direction. Coming to stand back together, the two men watched their backs recede into the distance. They passed the various requisitions tents set up outside the Gomorrah; one of the mess cooks stopped stirring a pot and looked down out of deference. When the guard was past the second gate, she resumed stirring and Alerio turned to Vulpes with a pointed look.

"After the show, he expressed a desire for my property to Caesar," Vulpes explained, eyes landing on the flames beneath the slave's cauldron. "I have not been face to face with him since, but I did not forget."

Alerio looked back at the second gate thoughtfully. 

"You never do."

 

\--

 

_Fire meant purity. The boy learned this when he watched the flames eat everything there was; the straw huts, the dried fishing rafts, the crops and the pests maligning them, the hair of his mother, and the bones of his father. The orange tendrils reflected against the blue-grey glass of his young irises. There was nothing left now._

_Fire will purify the Wastes of waste, the white-haired man told him in a peculiar tongue. It was like his language but not like his language: it sounded disjointed, strangely lilted words in wrong places._

_I am still here, the boy said in his own tongue._

_Yes._

_Am I pure?_

_Not yet, but you will know true purity soon, he promised._

_His mother and father burned on. The boy thought of the reasons they might have been impure. They did not seem different than him. When he asked for clarification, he learned that his mother was afflicted and afflicted people could not earn their keep. He also learned his father was too old to see the righteousness of purity. The boy asked what 'righteous' meant and the white-haired man laughed._

_You are in need of our guidance more than I thought, he said._

_The boy's eyes were glossy with fresh tears again as he stared ahead. They didn't spill over but pooled just enough to leave the flames an orange blur._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter isn't very long but I wanted to give y'all something. I'm trying to get back in a rhythm and feel out the direction I want to take. I'm worried that the pacing and feel have been all over the place the last 5-6 chapters and then I become concerned that it's all no good. I'm not used to handling so many characters alone, sheesh. It's almost like a team of people is needed to create storylines for an RPG! :p I'm no professional and it is what it is, so enjoy it for that!
> 
> I'm alsooooooo sorry for the delay and there will likely be another long bout before the next update. Got some pretty busy weeks ahead and between work and other hobbies, I don't foresee much time to sit and write.
> 
> As always, I'll hear your thoughts.


	32. Mind Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Updates on Cassius, Corinne and the newly formed Shady Gang.

**September 26 th, Vegas**

A good word to describe Edward Sallow might have been 'self-important,' though he certainly didn't see it that way. In fact, what others might call pompousness, he preferred to think of as his eminence (much in the way self-important people do)— he was quite proud of his accomplishments. Had it not been for his grand visions and follow-through, the Legion and all of its work would not exist and the Mojave would be much worse for it. It was his own ambitious tendencies that made his ear so sympathetic to the bold requests of a young Frumentarius standing before him now in his Ultra-Luxe suite, in search of a special assignment and talking up himself and his abilities.  
  
"Is that so?" Caesar asked with twinkling eyes. The young man looked about as tough as the latest shipment of captives to him, but he was always thrilled whenever someone showed grit.

"Yes, Caesar," Cassius answered firmly.

"And have you not been assigned details by Vulpes Inculta?" he prompted.

"I have, but—"

"Well what of them?" Caesar cut him off.

"I have executed them with ease—"

"And did you ask for more?"

"Yes, but—"

"So what is the problem?"

"I believe my skills would be better suit—"

"You don't trust his judgment," Caesar answered for him. Cassius was silent for a second, then nodded. Caesar chewed his lip while leaning against the armrest of his relocated throne. Then he picked at skin on his lip for quite some time. "Hnh."

"Imperator?"

"Do you know how Vulpes Inculta came to be the leader of the Frumentarii?" Caesar asked, emphatically.

"By appointment, I assume..." Cassius said.

"Indeed. And who appoints such positions?" he interrogated further.

"...Your... eminence?" the younger man answered, eyes flitting nervously to Lucius standing at attention at his side. He became much more aware of the seven other praetorians in the suite.

"Good. How do I do that?" Caesar continued.

"Ah...," Cassius shifted in his position. "I... I don't understand the question."

The white haired man rolled his eyes dramatically. 

"How? How. Do. I. Select. People. For these  _positions,_ " he said harshly. "What is the criterion?"

"I'm not sure," Cassius said slowly, swallowing.

"Exactly. You don't know what factors go into choosing a leader," he said with a brittle smile. "Did you consider that questioning a leader I appointed is questioning my judgment?"

"Uh, no," the young man said solemnly.

Caesar then leaned to the other side of his throne, holding his chin. When Cassius's eyes landed back on Lucius, he found a stare like flint, both in color and quality.

"Did you know that questioning the judgment of Caesar might imply you don't find him to be a fit leader?" he informed him, and the recruit's mouth opened to defend himself. He was cut off again by a halting hand. "AND such implications are considered by some to be an act of treason?"

Cassius looked like he'd released his bowels for a split second. He felt as if a grenade had just gone off near his head.

"I— I did not mean to—"

"Did. You. _Know._  That treason is punishable by death?" the emperor's voice echoed through the suite.

The young man's eyes clouded over with tears and the figures before him were engulfed by a blur; well, this was it. He took a chance and now he had to take the consequences, so he took a deep breath and stood rigid and proud, ready to accept his fate like a man. His only regret was that it would be over before he really ever had a chance.

"That, I do know," he said, quiet but firm. Cassius then knelt, bowing with "I willingly accept whatever punishment you see fit. True to Caesar."

He didn't see Lucius' slight and growing smile through his tears. Caesar looked up to him and grinned too. He laughed aloud, actually, and quite raucously. Confused and terrified, Cassius blinked and wiped his eye subtly, trying to make sense of the situation.

Once Caesar settled down, he sighed heartily.

"Relax, young man, and get up!" he barked as Cassius stood back to attention. "You think you're the first unsatisfied recruit to request an audience with me to try and bypass the system?"

"Ah..."

"It was a rhetorical question, son, happens at least once a fucking month," Caesar said, deadpan. "Anyhow, I've been alive a very long time. And I— and Lucius will attest to this— I put every one of you to the test. If you are big enough to come to me with your ambitions, you must be truly bold, and that it the first step. But the bold need other qualities to be great. Loyalty, for instance. You must not only be willing to kill for me, you must be ready to die for me— truly ready. And it seemed for a moment there that you were. I liked that."

Cassius replied with an uneasy smile. "Thank you, Imperator. For both your compliments and your grace."

Music to Edward Sallow's self-important ears, that was. 

"You distinguished yourself today. There will come a time when I will call upon you, young Cassius, to do my bidding," Caesar began. "Failure to do so might result in the end of your career, and quite frankly, your life, if the task should be so important.”

"I will not fail you, Caesar," the young man promised.

"That remains to be seen."

 ****  
  
***  
  
  
**September 28** th  , Shady Sands

  
"I'm ready, Arcade." 

"Like hell, you are." 

"I've been in the radiation tank a bunch of times this week," Beatrix complained. "And you know it's real musty in there." 

"The deal was that once every doctor here said you were ready, only then would we hit the road," Arcade reminded her. 

"Yeah, and you won't let me ask anyone else because you don't think I'm ready!" 

"I'm a doctor here, am I not?" 

"You're afraid, is what you are. And now you're stalling because of it," she accused him.

"I am not!"

"It’s been how many days since you agreed to help? The longer we sit around here, waiting on my ass to heal to your standards, the harder it will be for us to find my friends," the ghoul stated firmly. 

"She's right-ch’know," Orris, who'd been seated leisurely in the corner and sharpening a combat knife, added.

"And if we get all but ten miles from here before you collapse from exhaustion or other complications, we'll have to wait a lot longer before you're ready to go out again," the doctor informed them both.

"I'm willing to take that chance," Beatrix confirmed. "Bet he is too."  

When she jerked her head in the guard-turned-merc-turned-guard-again's direction, he nodded resolutely with a face that indicated there was no bullshit there.

“Do you not understand the fact that you were two seconds away from death when you were found?”

“I do. Don’t care,” she said, her dry lips in a thin line. Gannon sighed in resignation. 

"Fine. But if she gets sick from over-exertion or infection or one of the myriad of other medical reasons something might go wrong and we need to come back, you're carrying her the whole way." 

"I've carried much heavier shit for much longer, I promise you that," Orris said. 

"Your emotional burdens don't count, just so you know," Arcade quipped. 

"Ha ha fuckin' ha," Orris sneered, and Beatrix snickered. 

"So, Detective. Where do we start?" Beatrix asked the man. Earlier in the day, they found out that Orris did a stint as a cop when he lived in Vault City, which he conveniently kept to himself until now. Why a cop turned to a crook, she did not know or care to find out, but stranger things occurred. "And why are we just now finding this out about you? Couldn't you have started investigating before?" 

"We start at the site of the attack, obviously," he replied, "And it's not exactly info I want floatin' around freely, some of the less law-abiding Vegas types wouldn't have taken too kindly to it. I just figured you two should know that we do have a chance. I just can't do it alone, it's the whole Legion for Chrissakes. I'm no one man army."

"Could have fooled me back in Freeside,” Arcade chimed in. “And many others. Come to think of it, you did..."

Orris gave him a look to remind him how un-amusing he was.

"Yeah, I did convince a lotta folks that I kicked ass. You lookin’ to find out how?"

"I'm not dealin' with this shit from you two the whole way there," Beatrix exclaimed. When she made eye contact with Arcade, his face all but literally parted to say "yeah, you probably are."

"When are we getting out of here?" Orris cut in brusquely; he was brimming with anticipation. Beatrix turned to Arcade with a stink eye that had two hundred plus years of experience behind it. He raised his arms up in defeat.

"I can be packed and ready by the end of the hour, but I need until tomorrow morning to find someone to cover my shifts for the next two weeks," he told them in exasperation. Then he laughed nervously. “Heh. Or forever, who knows. I like to leave my endings open.”

“You’re stalling again!” she complained.

“ _No_ , I’m _trying_ to make sure that this clinic’s bases are covered in my absence,” Arcade explained. The ghoul rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“They’ll be fine without you,” Orris jumped in. Arcade looked taken aback.

“Have you considered that pissing off the only person who can save your ass might not be the best idea?”

Before Orris could respond, Beatrix lifted her left palm to shut him up and held the bridge of her nose with her right hand. She breathed out very carefully.

"We leave at the break of dawn, then. With or without you, Arcade," she rattled off before any more bickering could ensue.

He nodded and left the tent without a word.

"Think he’ll be ready?” Orris asked. She shrugged.

“We’ll find out, but either way, I’m going to save my friends, if I have to die trying.”

The crook nodded.

“Alright then.”  
           

**

 

**September 28 th , Cottonwood Cove**

 

Aurelius of Phoenix had little interest in wives. Most of the things they provided were easily and much more efficiently provided by robots, and he was not above making his opinions known to those in his company. Bots were not particularly difficult to locate and reprogram at a terminal. What a robot couldn’t do, he could usually handle with his right hand, though he didn’t need release often. Then there was the matter of an heir: he was never one to insist on blood lineage, there were plenty of children in the Legion and he could easily claim one from a slave.

It was all of these factors that made him hesitate when Vulpes Inculta of the Frumentarii smiled congenially and bestowed upon him a “gift.”

 _Great, one more responsibility,_ he thought. He graciously accepted the gift for the sole reason that it was a sign (if a misguided one) that he impressed higher-ranking officers enough to be considered, and nothing else.

Three weeks was not much time. Yet, it had been just enough for Flavia (his wife’s new name) to permeate the outer layers of his hardy emotional exterior. She took a week to adjust, but afterward each direction he gave she took in earnest, and in no time she was operating with great efficiency considering her human and female limitations. And Aurelius could no longer deny the inimitable human element required for proper cooking. A Mr. Handy would take years to develop her marinating technique.

Every day he went out into cove to oversee operations and returned at the same hour; like clockwork, he fought an embarrassing Pavlovian response to the aromatic wonders floating from the HQ building. One such example were the jalapenos, ground bighorner beef and fresh carrots sautéed together and folded into corn masa, then covered in husks for steaming.

One night he asked her where she learned her culinary prowess.

“My daddy taught me how to start a fire,” she’d said, grinning. “And how to make the most of everything you put on it.”

Within those three weeks, Aurelius put on several pounds and regretted none of it. He could never go back to the pitiful excuse for food that he knew before. And when he was delivered a summons to come back to Vegas for a summit by the end of the next week, he knew he must bring his slave with. He might even share her gift with Caesar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, most likely updating again within the next two weeks! You know what to do below.


	33. Opposites Attract

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vulpes and Aleah share a lesson in life, attraction and philosophy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the longest chapter I've posted and will post. A whomping 7000+ words! Your treat for dealing with the delays. The formatting is weird but it was too long for me to spend time fixing indentations.
> 
> I also realize other fics explore some of the same themes with the same characters and I certainly hope not to step on any toes with this direction of the story. It felt like the way to go but I tried to make distinctly different.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING FOR SEXUAL VIOLENCE

**September 29 th, Vegas**

 

Nearly four weeks passed since Aleah’s arrival to Vegas, though the magnitude of change in her new life made it seem like months. The giant X on her back finally stopped aching and began to scar, but it was still gnarled and discolored, and the phantom pains and the resulting nightmares did sometimes wake her in the night.

Work was grueling, but she was designated a day of rest about every eight to nine days, per her rudimentary calculations. On those days, Vulpes didn’t really ‘rest,’ he just stayed with her until the light before he left to his duties. On all other days, he was gone before Aleah awoke; in the beginning she joked to herself that he must be some sort of ghost or demon because he never stirred her. He just disappeared.

In her shifts, she learned more about fabrics and textiles than she thought possible, rounding out her skills in sewing, mending and re-purposing with the creation of fabric itself. If the circumstances weren’t what they were, she’d had thought it all to be pretty neat and naturally would have made some pretty bad ass costumes. Instead, with permission from the overseer, she made herself a soft cotton tunic to sleep in. Her pre-war night things weren’t exactly modest, Vulpes slept naked and they shared a blanket, so the more layers between them, the better.

Aleah’s lessons in the evening, the constant listening to bantering guards and the short conversations with Adelise at the lunch hour improved her Latin greatly, but she still had a long way to go before she could comfortably say she was fluent.

Speaking of her lessons, Vulpes had not come onto her again since that night. The next morning he let her sleep in and report to her shift three hours later than usual, vouching so that she faced no penalty. The sleeping in conflicted with the schedule she calculated and she just knew it must come with a catch, so that night Aleah emotionally prepared herself for a violent plowing. But it never came. He just smiled and offered her more tea with dinner, but no vodka that time. Then another lesson, and this time with no funny business. Afterward, he just picked up some newly acquired pre-war philosophical text and kept to himself in bed. She wondered what conceptual ideas could be so intriguing to a man whose life seemed to be all about _doing,_ before she caught herself and asked why she was wondering about him at all.

Throughout the rest of the week the lessons were benign in content and each night she actually found herself looking forward to the meal and tasty sweet tea; she began to feel calmer going to bed, if not mildly electric. Said electricity renewed her appreciation for the tunic.

Then the dreams started. They replaced her terrors, but they were equally tense, vivid and quite sexual in nature. Both Vulpes and Corinne starred in them, trading the main roles and pleasuring her in salacious ways she would never speak of aloud. She awoke from dreams of the former feeling alarm and guilt, and of the latter, extremely wistful and dejected.

One morning Aleah sat up and clutched herself, shivering. She took in a frantic and shallow lungful. It was still an hour before sunrise.

“Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, slowly,” his voice commanded gently in the dark. It sounded like it came from the floor. She hadn’t known he was awake or even there but she complied. A minute later, her breathing was regular.

“You whimpered for some time before waking, as if in terror. Did you dream of the branding?” Vulpes asked.

“No,” she told him, voice still husky with sleep. There was silence for a few seconds.

“Did you dream of me, then?” he probed, neutral.

“No. I dreamt of… of Corinne,” Aleah confessed. But she kept the intensely hot sex part, the sad about her lost lover part and the horror upon waking back up into reality part to herself.

More silence. She closed her eyes and rocked gently back and forth trying not to focus on what punishment her revelation could mean.

“It will pass with time,” he said with tenderness, voice much closer than it was before and now coming from slightly above. She jolted as she sensed him beside her but all he did was touch her cheek briefly. Then she could feel the breeze of his moving away. The light to the bathroom flicked on and he disappeared inside.

Aleah chuckled in disbelief. Aside from a well-placed pout and finger twisted in her curls to get her way, Aleah wasn’t one for manipulation, especially the emotional kind. But she could sniff it out a mile away. And yet, knowing something as the truth can mean little in the way of defense. People knew lots of things but it didn’t mean they could do anything about it or stop its effect, and with her circumstances, it was even harder. Vulpes’ behavior was no exception; she knew his kindness was a means to an end. She also knew that she had no choice but to take it for what it was, because anything was better than his wrath.

Aware as she sought to be, she didn’t know this was the calm before the storm.

After a long week of grueling work, finally the designated day of rest came, and in the still of the morning, two warm bodies lied asleep on the bed in the Tops Presidential suite. They both dreamt of violently fucking one another.

With groggy eyes snapping open, Aleah faced the wall. A minute passed and she felt Vulpes shift, and then unexpectedly, he wrapped himself around her like a boa constrictor.

She felt his breath against her neck; she didn't move, but she was tense. Her hitched breathing gave her away when he snuggled closer, nose pressed to her nape. One of his arms snaked around her waist and nestled under her breasts. He waited for a response beyond her tensing. Still, still.

Then his hand grasped one of the weighty globes through the tunic, and he appreciated how soft and warm she was. Her breath caught again.

            Vulpes' hand stayed there for the longest time, lazily doodling circles around her areola through the fabric, coaxing her nipple to hardness with his cool finger while he breathed in the familiar scent of her scalp. Then he pulled away, found the generous neck hole of her gown and he went through it to touch her skin directly, finding the hard nipple again. Aleah felt a surge in her loins and swallowed, trying to ignore it. But the delicious teasing went on and at some point made her so uncomfortable that she abruptly wrenched away from him, covering herself and lying on her stomach.

            The mutated _turnera diffusa_ was strong, but apparently his captive was resolved to prove she was stronger. Patience shattered, Vulpes sat up on his side and forced her onto her back, moving back onto his haunches and settling himself between her legs. He pushed the hem of the tunic up the length of her legs, admiring their shape along the way. The room was still dark in the early hours of the morning, but there was enough light to catch the vengeful glint in his eyes and the firm set of his mouth, so Aleah did not fight. The tunic was discarded entirely and cast to the floor.

Her breasts pooled on her chest before him and they stared one another down, even as he slowly lowered his mouth to her chest. She tried to maintain eye contact as long as she could while he took the little wrinkled nub between his teeth and sucked and pulled. Her face was mangled with trepidation but she watched him like a hawk. His tongue swirled about, wet and tortuous, and her arms lied to the side limp, hands clenching.

            He moved to the other nipple, replicating the teasing until that one was hard as well then leaned over her, inches from her face. He slid his hand down her middle, stopped once to grab her belly possessively and then continued downward where he grasped her mound. When she felt him move her left leg upward Aleah braced herself for his violent intrusion, but instead of his cock, his fingers dipped inside of her, testing the abundant lubrication. Once he found it sufficient, his fingers created a hook shape and probed upward. Her lips formed an "O" and her eyes widened deliciously, then they dodged his eyes to keep him from seeing her shame. Of course he saw it anyway.

            “Please don’t,” Aleah begged him. She braced herself for poundings and beatings, but pleasure crossed a line that apparently did not exist for him. “Please don’t make it like this. _Please,_ just…”

            Vulpes left her a cheshire grin in response and he pumped his fingers into her, slow, deep and hard. Her eyes rolled back.

            "Oh, _fuck_ ," she choked, horrified at intensity of his fingers. She was very slick thanks to her dream and the nipple play, and he knew precisely where to find her spot. Vulpes' free hand snaked up, and with his thumb and forefinger spread apart it pressed on her throat right beneath the jaw, constricting just enough to slow the blood flow to her brain without restricting her air. It made her delightfully dizzy. He could feel her pulse quicken against his skin and his own blood rushed toward his cock.

Aleah gasped, horrified again when his hand around her neck caused her vaginal muscles clench around his hand in tandem. She realized he really could choke the life from her, snap her neck in an instant, and it only excited her further. She despised him but despised herself even more, especially since she had a lover she was committed to before she found herself in this mess. Shame at the thought of her forced infidelity bloomed deep in her abdomen, mutating her pleasure but Vulpes forced those thoughts out of her head with his assault on her senses.

He pressed his lips against hers passionately, biting her bottom lip hard, still moving his fingers within her, and she moaned into his mouth, arching toward him. Vulpes kissed down her chin to her throat and collar bones then back up, and with one hand pressed against her jugular, he spread the fingers in her cunt apart as he pulled them out, then plunged them back in, going for her spot again. Aleah whimpered into his mouth softly. They went on like this for minutes before he tore away from her mouth, breath ragged as he growled into her ear. 

"Touch yourself."

“Please, I don’t want—"

“Touch. Your. _Self._ ”

            Her nose flared as she looked at him but she conceded, needing the release both to get him to stop and for her sanity. Finally she reached down and found her clit swollen and wet from his palm having spread her fluids about, and rubbed in feverish circles. Her eyes rolled again and she arched against him too. Then her hips thrust wantonly up toward him and she convinced herself she was under some spell because why else would she be acting like such a desperate cat in heat? The combined sensations were frenzying, and it was only a minute afterward that she exploded in pleasure around his fingers, gasping and convulsing beneath him, and releasing a soft, choked moan.

            Vulpes leaned in close to her, grinning as she continued to come, fingers pushing deeper amid her pleas to stop, that she came already, that it was too much and she couldn't take it anymore, please! He didn't stop shoving his fingers back and forth until she squealed and bucked beneath him, then he was back on his haunches, guiding his thick, already hard length to her entrance. He rammed himself in but much less effort than before was required, thanks to her lubrication and worn out muscles. He thrust deep, coaxing another gasp, and he clung to her torso, needing as much of her skin as possible to make contact with his. She had only enough energy left to be grateful that their joining was less painful this time. 

Vulpes held onto her and fucked her hard for a while with the occasional thrust going uncomfortably deep, and Aleah let him push her legs back toward her head. For a moment, he sat back to pull out and then spat directly onto her sex, rubbing it in with his cock. When he pushed back in, he watched her pink hole stretching around him with fascination and once hilted, began moving again, hips undulating with skill. When Aleah could hear how wet their joining sounded, her muscles worked to add to it, and her hips lifted again.

With one hand Vulpes grabbed a fistful of her curls and pulled so that her neck was exposed, and he scraped his teeth against her, pinning her with the other hand.

“Wrap your legs around me, Aglaea,” he ordered, eyes like granite when they locked with hers. Her submission was immediate and automatic, and shortly thereafter her soft thighs gripped him strongly.

His own grip on her head intensified and was somewhat painful, which made Aleah wetter. It wasn't too long afterward that he gave a final thrust and spilled into her, his own organ contracting with a grunt.

            They lied tangled together for the better part of a half hour floating down from a peculiar emotional cloud, with Aleah still on her back and him shifting his weight off of her earlier on. She wouldn't look at him and he didn't force her to, until he could make out sniffling noises. When Vulpes grabbed her face and pulled it to his, there were both fresh and dried tear tracks, which made him feel strange now that he’d gotten his release.

            "Are you in pain?" he asked evenly, studying the site of their union.

            " _Waimy_ ," she mumbled something incoherently.

            "What?"

            " _Why. Me?"_

            His eyes narrowed, and she thought he still couldn't understand her, so she spoke loud and clear.

            "Why did you pick me? Why did you go through all of that trouble to own me? To do all of this to me?" she begged, slowly losing control of the flood of her emotions. This was the first time she actually confronted him since the night in the dressing room.

            "Because I wanted you, you know this already _._ "

            "That's not good enough!” she snapped. The resoluteness of her own voice surprised her. " _Why?"_

            He hesitated, which was quite significant for a man like Vulpes.

            "You... would not understand," he stated firm and low. 

            Aleah vehemently shook her head. "No. You don't get to make that assumption about me, not after everything you've done."

            "I get to do whatever I wish if only because I have the power to," he began, and she grimaced and added a snort, ready to protest. Vulpes sat up and stared intensely at her and raised his hand in a halting fashion, cutting her off. " _But_ I will humor you with an answer because logically... your point has standing. I should not assume. I don't owe you anything, but I will grant you an explanation."

Aleah inhaled deeply with her eyes shut, then opened them again. "Why me?"

            "I want you because..." the man started, then trailed off, eyes still hard but less focused on what he actually saw ahead of him. "I need you."

            Aleah's chest sank and her eyes widened with alarm composed of confusion, pain and just the slightest hint of sympathy... despite all that he had done to her. And that sympathy enraged him, not because it was silly on her part but because he did not need it. He despised pity like he despised empathy in general; in his experience it was an equally useless feeling to both the donor and recipient and he wouldn’t stand for it.

            " _Do not look at me like that,"_  he hissed so severely he made her cringe, nearly losing his unfaltering collected demeanor. She swallowed and looked down at her hands, fidgeting nervously. His teeth were clenched so tight that had he shown them, his gums would be white. After a few seconds, he released the tension and exhaled low and smooth. The next line was spoken in earnest. "You need me as well.”

The dancer scoffed with incredulity, ready yet again to protest when he gave her an exhausted look that shut her up. At first Aleah didn’t think he could actually believe that, but he looked very serious. Just as soon as she opened her mouth, she closed it. He was crazy; he had to be, to say such a thing.

“I do not say it lightly,” Vulpes continued, reading her face. “When I first saw you, I was drawn to you like no one else before, and you were drawn to me as well. The chemistry there grew with time and I wished to understand it. I have spent plenty of time thinking about it."

Justified rage aside, she must admit she didn’t feel this preternatural draw toward any other person, not even Corinne whom she felt deep fondness and desire for—which sucked to admit. And it had nothing to do with gender, because she didn’t feel it for Orris either. She was deeply attracted to them, yes, but it was Vulpes who ensnared her from first contact.

            Aleah relaxed just a tiny bit, in genuine need of his explanation. Vulpes would not meet her eyes for the first time ever. Instead he looked around the bedroom of the suite with a bored expression even though she knew deep down that the words he sought were very important and clearly stressful for him to admit. When he looked down, she could see the contour of his jaw and the curve of his mouth, strong and handsome and parting just slightly in the growing light of dawn. She cursed herself for looking at the cause of her misery with such appraising eyes. Finally he looked at her and the intensity of his gaze was renewed twofold.

            "Do you know of Immanuel Kant?" Vulpes queried, the hint of a smile in his eyes. Aleah gulped and shook her head. "He was a German philosopher, active nearly four hundred years before the Great war. He had a theory that Caesar likes to speak about. Actually, he first explored it and another philosopher named Fichte expanded upon it, but interestingly enough it is erroneously accredited, even by Caesar, to yet another philosopher by the name of Hegel. The theory is most widely known as the Hegelian Dialectic. Familiar?"

            "No," Aleah said, both intrigued and bewildered.

            "Kant had a theory: there is a thesis, or an idea, and there is its antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two is resolved by means of a synthesis when they come together," the now grinning Vulpes lectured her. "Caesar likens it to the Legion and the NCR. But the books we have on the subject grossly oversimplify the concept, they had maybe a few paragraphs on Kant. They didn’t explain _why_  the thesis needs an antithesis, it just does. But the lack of a reason troubled me, thus— as I am so accustomed to doing— I dug deeper.

            "In my travels, I set aside time to comb library after derelict library, scouring the wastes for anything on Kant, Fichte, Hegel, anything remotely relevant. And since the battle at Hoover Dam, I’ve had more time to read what I could find," the Frumentarius confessed. "Just like your costumes and cosmetics, books on philosophy have been unfairly deemed as useless for the world in which we live... but they contain everything that is missing, what we don't know we need. They contain the tools to find the reasons for all that we do, the answers to the 'why' questions."

            "What did you find, Vulpes?" Aleah asked him pointedly, uncomfortable by the tangent. She needed her answers from him here and now.

            "A book on Hegel, with his more developed model: the abstract, the negative and the concrete," he declared, leaning closer to her. She knew better than to move away from him now but the urge still tugged at her. "The book on Hegel gave me the clarification I sought. To summarize, it suggests a flaw, or better yet a sense of inadequacy with the starting idea, as opposed to two whole and separate but differing ideas merging into something new. 

“The initial thesis is unfinished, too abstract, hence the term,” Vulpes continued passionately. “It lacks the negative of trial and error, and experience. Hegel hypothesized that the concrete, the synthesis, the absolute— whatever you wish to call the end result— is the outcome, because the abstract must always pass through the phase of the negative, in the journey to completion, or mediation. And the negative wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the abstract.

“Think about it: two entities, separate but aimless, pointless without one another, fitting into each other like a key fits into a lock,” he finished. His knee brushed against her. “Something opens up.”

Aleah looked at his knee and chewed on the words for a moment, feeling strange about his theory and not in a good way.

“Is… that supposed to be… romantic?” she asked, taking effort to keep her skepticism from sounding accusatory.

“It’s not inherently romantic or beautiful,” he said, face neutral. “It’s merely true.”

            Aleah breathed slow and even, giving Vulpes the same expression she did earlier but without the sympathy, she knew better. Then she thought about it.

            “So you raped me… because of a philosophical theory?” she asked, incredulous.

            “No. I took you because I was bound to take a slave or wife at some point anyway,” he said. “But I ‘chose’ you because in short, there was no actual choice in the matter, because of who we are as individuals. Since I first saw you, it was always going to happen.”

Aleah thought he was crazy when he began— well, she still didn't think he was all there now— but what he said made the tiniest bit of sense, maybe. She thought of their first one on one encounter and the intense, nearly gravitational pull she felt and a chill pulsed through her body—what else could explain that? Nature, maybe. But there had to be something to explain nature, didn’t there? Philosophy might be the thing.

They were polar opposites who were drawn to each other for some metaphysical reason beyond emotional logic clearly, because Aleah loathed Vulpes Inculta with each cell in her body for the things he did, but each of those cells yearned for him still, even in this moment. And obviously he hated her in a way, because one did not do the things he did to a person if one truly loved another, but he was here still, laying all his cards on the table. They were complementary on so many fronts: he signified war, violence, discipline and she love, pleasure and leisure; they were control and freedom, voyeur and exhibitionist, him stony and unyielding and her forgiving and soft, and ultimately dominant and submissive. 

            Aleah was programmed to love unconditionally and give her all to help those she cared about as well as strangers or those who'd wronged her, and Vulpes was conditioned to deceive and manipulate to achieve his goals and decimate anything that contrasted the Legion's values. Aleah and her lifestyle being the absolute contrast to those values, should have repelled him but instead he... felt whatever he did about her. It wasn't love; it was something much darker with an emotional grip that rivaled love all the same. But she felt that she _could_ exist on her own after experiencing his effect; she genuinely doubted now she could say the same for him now.

            Aleah's head hurt from thinking about it, from going in circles and circles and trying to find the solution or a means by which to maybe help him without the two of them coming together and absorbing one another to cancel out each other’s flaws, perceived or not. This was all kinds of fucked up; she didn’t know what to do or say anymore. She would have dropped her head into her hands but was still lying on her back so instead she covered her face. Vulpes watched her closely, doing that thing he was so good at where he managed to emanate sternness but still appeared totally neutral to the eye. He saw the turmoil written on the tense muscles of her shoulders.

            "You understand now," he said quietly. 

            At the very least, she could say his confession brought them to a point where she was able to be in bed near him consciously without feeling like she would throw up. Her anxiety faded and was replaced with a strange sense of calm and ease, in a my-psyche-is-too-traumatized-to-let-me-experience-the-full-strength-of-my-emotions kind of way. A whole minute went by before she spoke, palms still against her face and muffling her speech.

            "Who is what?" she asked.

            "Elaborate, please," he prompted.

            "Who... which of us is the thesis or negative?"

            "The thesis or abstract, and antithesis or negative."

            "Whatever," it came out bland, there was no energy left to snap. He knew she understood and that was the point. "Which one am I?" 

            Vulpes looked to side in thought, touching his chin lightly. "I don't know. I've thought about it often but I haven't been able to decide."

            "Ha," Aleah said after a bit. Her hands slid down and revealed that she was smiling; it was small and tentative, but to his surprise it was genuine and cheeky like those she gave on stage, not robotic or tainted by derision for him for the first time. She laughed again and the musical sound sent power through his veins. "I would have thought you'd put yourself and the Legion first and say that I sully your ideals. Make me the antichrist."

            "It's 'antithesis.'" Vulpes smirked lightly and for once there wasn't a profound intensity to his eyes and his forehead was relaxed some; he was so handsome again. He finished in a casual tone. "The dissolute ideals you embody existed _long_ before the organization and discipline of the Legion, or even the first Caesar pre-war, and we exist to fix them," he enlightened her. "So technically, I guess you come first."

            Her eyebrows quirked.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

A couple more beats passed.

            “Learning this has helped me understand now why most slaves and captures never interested me. By the time I got around to looking over them, they were already broken or indoctrinated,” Vulpes added. “Seeing you in your element was different. You are so unlike the others. Aside from your body, I have never seen such… freedom, such bliss in a person than when you are onstage.”

            The dancer took a moment to chew on that, touched that she had that effect on him.

            “Do you not feel free as part of the Legion?” she asked eventually.

            “That depends on one’s interpretation of the definition of freedom.”

            “Are you a slave, then?” Aleah pondered outright. Vulpes didn’t answer right away, and she frowned. “It’s not a difficult question to answer.”

            “It isn’t, but it’s not so cut and dry either. Yes, I was brought in as a child before I had the capacity to truly consent to this life. But I have had countless opportunities to leave since then and have considered the choice extensively, and I stay because I find that nothing else compares to the security and discipline of the Legion.”

            “But how can you know what you really want when you have only ever experienced this one way of living? What else have you really known?” she asked, genuinely concerned for him.

            “I have experienced lots of ways of living, Aglaea,” he refuted. “I have infiltrated more groups than you can count on all your fingers, and ‘practiced’ their ways while doing so, that is how I met you. The tribe I come from, in Utah? We had a tiny fraction of the knowledge of medicine that Caesar did, and he was only with the Followers of the Apocalypse for a few years before he began the raids. Cut that fraction in half and you have our knowledge on agriculture, municipality or combat and defense. We were savages like so many other groups, and I am amazed every day that I survived. I spent the first years of my life under the assumption that it was normal to see skeletal children with sunken eyes, yellowed teeth, missing patches of hair, rotting flesh, maggots eating wounds in their skin while they nurse from their mothers.”

            Aleah grimaced in silence.

            “I didn’t know it was possible, even normal for young boys to grow into men until I began my training, because so many of us died,” the Frumentarius continued. The dancer shook her head gently.

            “The way you lived was awful, but tribes— _people_ can be taught how to improve their civilizations without being forced to assimila—

            “They cannot,” he cut her off. “You cannot teach people valuable knowledge and leave them to their devices. It feels nice to think in ideals, but the Wasteland is not a ‘nice’ place, Aglaea. There are too many threats and temptations out there that permeate and corrupt the way people interact with each other, so they must be controlled or vices will take over, and by that point they are beyond the help of assimilation and must be eliminated, for their own good. This is why the Followers and NCR’s work is never done.”

            “I don’t agree. I see the logic in how you get there, but I don’t agree. There’s more to it than that, you have to have a little more trust in people.”

His expression (or lack thereof) at her statement made her feel a bit silly, so she moved onto her next point, turning toward him and squinting.

“Besides, you desire my freedom. Or at least, the freedom I _had._ So why is that, if freedom is so bad?”

            “I didn’t say I desired it,” Vulpes corrected her. “But I do admire what it does to your presence.”

            “What do you mean?”

            Vulpes’ expression was neutral but his eyes twinkled and his voice softened, just slightly.

            “You light up like a beacon, visible even through smoke and fog. The feeling you evoke, it’s… like watching the glow of the Strip from afar in the desert at dusk. I feel… hope. For something.”

Aleah felt something tug in her chest and a suction-like pressure inside her head then, like the opposite of ears popping. He looked at her candidly and she turned to lie back again with hitched breaths, unable to function under his intensity in that moment. Instead, she placed her hands behind her head, staring up at the ceiling of the suite and after a minute of silence, began humming a tune to herself.

She knew now it was he who was the flawed idea and that she was cursed to be the antidote to the venom he (and the Legion) released into the lives of others, whether he knew it or not, but she couldn’t yet tell him.

            Recognizing the hummed melody from the speakers in Vegas months ago, Vulpes lied next to her on his side and studied her, supporting himself with an elbow. He couldn't tell what was going on in her head for once and it was unsettling, so he waited with as much patience as he could muster. Eventually the tune came to an end and a couple words came out between hums.

            "—we'll find out just as sure as we liiiive, something's gotta give, something's gotta give, something's got to give..." the dancer finished with a sigh. She looked at Vulpes then.

            "For a dancer, you have surprisingly good pitch," he joked lightly. Aleah smiled and shrugged while lying down. Her mind went to Beatrix’s singing the day she was abducted and just as quickly as it came, she pushed the thought away, only able to address one tragedy at a time these days.

            "The pitch is easy. It's the pipes I lack, but that's why I dance and strip," she explained. "You still get all the attention and the action. Those lyrics are sorta fitting though, huh? Couldn't help but think of them."

            Vulpes recalled the rest of the words in his nearly infinite memory, about unstoppable forces and immovable objects. He nodded. "They are."

            "Vulpes," she began, and he still had to get used to her saying his name at all. He took a mental note of that and grunted. "I need to know something."

            "What is it?" he asked, voice steady.

            "Please don’t take this the wrong way, but are you going to kill me?" she asked flat out. His brow furrowed in offense and confusion and she scrambled to explain herself. The story of Beatrix’s friend with the abusive husband had come to mind. "I mean—something’s gotta give, right? I need to know the risk. I'm no philosopher, but I know that a fascination can start out controlled and grow into something else. And people get hurt, killed even, particularly if they don’t see things the same way as the person in control. If I don’t submit to it, or Gods, even if I _do,_ will this mess end with you killing me?"

            Her eyes were open and searching and Vulpes could make out the gloss of tears collecting around the beautiful brown irises. He was hurt that she thought such a thing, and he was also offended that she referred to this as just a ‘fascination’ but that was the least pressing concern to address. Still, the yearning to choke and devour her with his lips at the site of her beauty and fear reared its ugly head as if to punctuate her question. But Vulpes did neither. Truthfully, he thought he’d given her reason to believe she was safe up to this point. So he answered her firmly, no thought needed.

            "No." Aleah slumped a little bit with relief he assumed, while he tried to cache his disappointment at their lack of progress. "And this is not a mere fascination or obsession. The concrete idea could not exist were one of us to perish. Killing you is counter to that."

            _I need you,_  the words in his vulpine voice rang in Aleah's head. She could see it all over his face now.

            "So... what?" she inquired, and his eyebrows were the ones to quirk now. "Are we stuck together now forever because of some convenient theory, with me just taking whatever you decide to dish out?"

            Vulpes didn't say anything, looking away again not with discomfort but with thought.

            "Look at me, Vulpes."

He did, and he seemed different to her. The light-heartedness that existed for those few short minutes was gone, replaced with fast-spreading steel. She searched him for a moment hoping it would resurface, then finally confronted him. "The solution can't consist of you fucking me and exploiting me for labor for the rest of our lives. If I am so important, if _this_ is so important—" she pointed her finger back and forth between the two of them—“then I refuse to believe that's the only thing to come of it. It's premature."

            "There has already been change, Aglaea. You can see it. Am I not a different master than you expected?" he pushed. He wanted to tell her about the clarity she brought but kept it to himself because she didn’t have much of a frame of reference.

            "What about me? What do I get out of this? How do you make me better?” she wanted to know. He sat up and looked her in the eye.

            “You’ve learned useful skills and a trade, and gained a master dedicated to providing you protection from your vices,” he said matter-of-factly.

            “By force!” she clarified.

            He shrugged, no shame anywhere to be found.

            “And you,” she choked, swallowed, “you talk about ‘protection’ but I don’t feel safe here. I am terrified _all_ the time.”

“That will take time to change, but you must be controlled and possessed, hurt even,” he said.

“God, that’s the Legion talking, Vulpes! Why did I even try?”

“I don’t say that to regurgitate Legion prattle,” he hissed. “What I am saying now has nothing to do with my allegiance—I mean it. I’m not just talking about where we come from or what we stand for, but what is in our nature. This is about us on an interpersonal level. I _know_ you.”

She looked at him like she was figuratively split in half, and he kept going.

“And I know it’s true because similarly, I need to control, possess and inflict pain. I would have been the same if I had never crossed paths with the Legion.”

“You don’t know that.”

Vulpes scoffed.

“Yes, I do. It is in my nature. And you, you desire to be taken to the edge and you require someone with the complementary desire to take you there and the self-restraint to do it without going over it. I have seen it in your eyes and in your reactions to me. When I threatened to choke you earlier, it brought you to your climax. You have an innate desire to submit.”

Aleah tried not to pull her hair out. Lying was futile.

“Do you deny it?”

“No!” she shrieked, trying not to cry, but her pitch rose still. “I _do_ feel it, and I can’t help that I do, but I should still be able to decide if, when and to whom to give up that control!”

He shook his head. “You do not get the power to decide, if you give up control, Aglaea. You can’t have it both ways.”

She was stunned into silence at his statement. Perhaps he might take it as resignation, but she had no words. Their conversation this morning demonstrated something terrifying to her. To deal in only absolutes was a dangerous and unrealistic outlook but she doubted she could ever get him to see that, so she tried something else.

            "You said you needed me," she repeated, finally sitting up next to him. He bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. "Does that mean you care for me?"

            "Yes," he responded resolutely. It took something for him to calmly say so, since a mere yes didn't do his amplifying feelings justice.

            "Does that mean my happiness means something to you?" Aleah tried next. He gritted his teeth again, h e knew where this was going. He spoke through his teeth after a few beats. 

            "Yes."

            "Let’s say my happiness is inseparably linked to my freedom, and that I’d wish to die every single day I am kept here against my will," the dancer suggested. "If I were to try to walk out that door, leave the Strip, would you let me go?"

            "You would not make it past that door," Vulpes answered, regarding it with far away eyes. Aleah laughed again in her derisive manner, but this time she sounded more defeated.

            "Then clearly my happiness doesn’t matter on its own—just if it works in your favor. So what if I told you that your obsession with me—because make no mistake: that is what this is— is not only killing me inside, but that it’s killing the _very_ thing you need from me? What if there is no synthesis because you snuff the light out of me that you want?”

            “I would never allow such a thing,” he claimed.

“Fucking hell! It’s not about _allowing_ anything!”

“Do _not_ raise your voice at me, Aglaea.”

With tears at the edge of her eyes, Aleah swallowed and lowered her voice.

“Why do you get to reap the benefits of my torment and I just spiral into a drain of hatred toward you?"

            "Do you hate me then?" Vulpes probed, deflecting her question and replacing it with his own. He was distraught at the thought but nonetheless he asked matter-of-factly, not looking for flattery, just the truth.

She wanted to call him a leech, a parasite, spit at the thought of something better than both of them existing after their “union.”

Then suddenly Aleah couldn't stop herself from bursting into tears with sobs that shook her entire core forcibly. Her display of agony was so gut-wrenching that even Vulpes was taken aback, and he felt a longing to comfort her but something inside stopped him. He opened his mouth and nothing came forth.

Once she calmed, only hyperventilating here and there, she chuckled again darkly.

            "No. I don't hate you. And before anyone with some sense asks, no, I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me, though something must be, to not hate you," she added hoarsely. She huffed again and brought her hand down over her face, pulling the skin down around her eyes in an unintentionally comical way. "Do you know that right now, if you were to let me and Corinne go, I would forgive you for everything? For taking Tommy’s eye, for torturing and raping me, probably letting someone else rape my lover, taking over the world, murdering my friend in cold blood, all of it. Hell yes, I'd run like my life depended on it and I would never see you again. But I wouldn’t try to get revenge on you. You treat the one you supposedly care for like you hate her and now I’m treating the one I should hate like I love him. Isn't that something?”

The fact that she admitted any of this was all he needed to set his mind permanently.

“Gods, what _is_  wrong with me?" she finished.

            Vulpes swallowed a single time and spoke very carefully.

            "You are docile at heart and compassionate, and on you that is no fault,” he affirmed quietly, staring into her eyes with genuine affection. “That is one of the many reasons I will not let you go.”

 _I need you,_ she heard again.

He didn’t dare to try to convince her that she needed him too. He was confident she would realize it sooner or later.

            "I know," she told him after a long pause, shaking her head in concession. "Believe me, Mister, I know."

            “Mister Fox,” he said, smiling slightly.

            “Huh?”

            "You said 'mister.' It's 'Mr. Fox'," he added playfully and tentatively, hoping she would accept the white flag, even if only temporarily. She recalled their first meeting and when she laughed, it was weary.

            “You remember what I said back to you, right?” Aleah asked, smirking again finally.

            It was weak but he took it. With his own grin, Vulpes pulled her to him and kissed her with a surprising amount of tenderness, so much so that Aleah didn't fight. There was no use anyway; she was quite stuck. So instead she sank heavily into him like he was quicksand, resenting how perfectly her body fit against him, as the weight of this man and his twisted devotion claimed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has endured some SERIOUS re-writes, and I can't guarantee they're over tbh, as without other eyes/opinions until I officially post, I can't tell if there's cohesion or if it makes sense. Anyhow I really like the Hegelian Dialetic as a metaphor for the Legion and the NCR, as well as the tragedy of an analytical character desperate for an explanation of his feelings. 
> 
> I will entertain your thoughts.


	34. Reap What You Sow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aleah (sort of) acclimates to life as a captive but gets some not-so-great news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some brackets and broken English to indicate foreign language speaking-- but it's not a reflection of actual Latin sentence structure so much as it is formatted to express the speaker's level of proficiency. Just for clarification! I don't speak Latin and I'm not trying to learn it just for this story, I do what I can. Also more dub-con sex stuff, you've been warned. And more emotional manipulation, I hate that I love it. o wel

Vegas, September 30th – October 4th

Over the course of the week after their conversation, things between Aleah and Vulpes did change somewhat. Now that the temporary period of chastity had been broken, he began to more frequently take out his intense sexual aggression on her, in body and mind; however Vulpes did seem more in tune with what was too much for her to handle in the moment and touched her more often with tenderness, as well as gave her the occasional bonbon here and there and used terms of endearment a few times, which made her feel… strange above all else.

For Aleah, escape was still the main goal, but the next few times he initiated contact with her, she was less rigid, and she allowed him to reward her with pleasure whenever he decided... and she referred to him as her master in conversations with others as she was expected, but had yet to say it to his face. Though his words about them needing one another still repeated through her head and seemed truer with each passing day, she vowed not to ever let herself really believe it, but she became a little bit weaker each time he touched her.

And it was so hard when Vulpes was so good at what he did. The level of his prowess left her speculating how many women he’d been with—particularly in encounters where their pleasure was important. It was not an objective for Legion men to bring pleasure to their partners; in fact, from what she heard of the other captive people, the sex that was had was almost masturbatory, just Legionaries using various holes instead of their hands, pounding away until they found release. The first few nights in captivity with Vulpes had been like that, but it seemed he figured out right away that making her enjoy herself in some way was both its own form of torture and made it his constant goal. It was like he made a point to log everything that made her gasp, jerk or moan for future use.

One of those pleasure-oriented nights, when Aleah finally let herself relax (she did so less out of any trust really earned and more out of exhaustion, repetition, proximity and acceptance of her status) he’d done what she thought was impossible for a man: he made her come—not with her help, but just his own devices.

She’d lied on her back with Vulpes between her legs taking his harsh thrusts and was just about checked out emotionally, when suddenly he decided that wouldn’t do and grabbed her face to make eye contact and pushed deeper into her. She wailed in pleasure and pain and after a few minutes of that, he pulled out, licked his fingers and slid them into her wet, lush folds, pressing against her spot. With one hand, he yanked her head back by her hair, and with the other, he would build up the pressure as he murmured into her ear that she belonged to him, then pull out, then push in again. He continued stimulating until he brought her close, then pulled out once more, torturing her, then he shoved in again while muttering against her face all the ways in which he claimed her, bringing her to the edge and stopping and repeating. Stop, repeat, stop, repeat, yanking, whispering, finger-fucking again and again until he pushed her right over the edge and she came to pieces beneath him.

He’d done what no other man had the skill to do, and all without assistance from her. The only other person Aleah knew who could do such a thing was Corinne, likely because she had similar anatomy, but Vulpes had done the same and got her there in record time; he was a studious learner with drive to boot. Slick with sweat and shame, Aleah stared up at him in amazement. The look he gave her, a confident and dark, subtle grin, nearly made Aleah come all over again. Then he covered her mouth (he like the way she sounded muffled) and resumed thrusting into her until he found his own milky release deep within.

Aside from his astonishing sexual ability, Vulpes continued to keep aware of Aleah’s other physical, emotional and mental needs. Her education in Latin was still vital, so along with lessons, he would take time to read to her texts in the language. While she learned quickly, her skill level was still too rudimentary to fully appreciate the elegant poetry and prose he longed to share with her, so instead he kept it to technical scripts, focused on improving her vocabulary and grammar for now.

Sex aside, nights with her new master seemed to ease. But she had a difficult time getting used to anything else, especially other Legionaries' treatment of her and other slaves.

Aleah worked alongside Adelise/Minima at the Old Mormon Fort, and during her weaving and sewing she came to learn there was a lot of creative Latin terminology for the express purpose of dehumanizing the captives. To her surprise and appreciation, the guards stayed away from weight-related comments, however anything gender-based was open game. Aleah never knew there were so many ways to call a woman a worthless whore.

One day, as she sat side-by-side with her friend chopping and boiling imported beetroot to dye some fancier garments, she noticed a familiar short-ish brown-skinned man wearing a fancy helmet she recalled. She’d seen him before some days ago: the first time he seemed to be casing the area and once he spotted her, he left with haste. This time, he lingered for a bit but still watched her from the other side of the fort. He mentioned something to the guard near the entrance, but she could not hear from across the compound. He seemed to be casing again and Aleah wished to study him in return but refrained from looking at him out of deference.

“[You know… man? In hat?]” she quietly asked in poorly conjugated Latin. Her chin pointed in his direction but she looked at Adelise.

“[Yes. He is Felix, a Centurion in the Legate’s unit,]” Adelise responded fluently. Aleah loved that about her, that she never missed a beat and didn’t talk to her like an illiterate child as some others did, but still kept it simple enough to understand. It helped her to learn the language quicker, and due to its ancestry with English, the dancer knew more than she realized and picked up a lot in context. Some things she was still lost on, though.

“Centurion?”

“[Yes… a special officer.]”

“Hmph,” Aleah grunted.

She figured it was important to finally learn of the military structure of the Legion if she was going to be stuck there, so she could avoid pissing off someone high up and getting berated, or worse. But the overseer near them shifted and looked at them pointedly, and Aleah realized that this particular guard didn’t tolerate any leisurely conversation among captives, even if it didn’t impede their productivity. She would inquire with Vulpes later. For now, there were more beets to chop, as the man at the post eloquently reminded her, seated comfortably beneath a former doctor’s tent while they sat in the sweltering sun.

Months ago, Aleah would have loved to get her hands on some beet root dye to create her own, perfect shade of lipstick; now she labored to dye the garments of her captors a beautiful shade of crimson. She absolutely feared these men, but she didn’t accept in her heart the way they treated her, like some slaves had. Women like Siri, who she’d come to chat with a few times in her short time as a captive, weren’t happy… but they surely existed in a strange state of emotional resignation. She couldn’t blame them; the human mind only had so many devices with which to deal with the horrors of captivity. She imagined anyone that didn’t benefit from Legion assimilation more than they suffered, went through their own version of the stages of grief.

Aleah herself was stuck in the anger stage: whatever… the hell it was she felt toward Vulpes, growing or not, didn’t extend to any other Legionary. She was confused with him, but knew exactly how she felt about the rest of these horrid men. She often fantasized about clawing out some of the eyes she was never to meet without permission.

But aside from her own safety, Aleah had Corinne and now Adelise’s wellbeing to consider, as the Legion demonstrated it was prepared to use any card it had to play against any of its enemies; and while he seemed taken with her, she didn’t think Vulpes would come to the defense of those she cared about. In fact, he might very well be the one to lead the charge against her loved ones to ensure her compliance. So instead of wringing the neck of the lounging guard like she so vividly pictured, seeing red literally and figuratively, she wrung the cloth she worked with between her hands to dispel the physical energy her immediate rage generated; the root’s juice looked like blood sliding down her forearms.

            Later that night in bed, Vulpes took one of her arms and with careful fingers and keen eyes, examined it while Aleah sat idly, reading aloud some text about medicinal desert herbs and trying to hide how she rolled her eyes when he corrected her pronunciation. Naturally, he caught the gesture and pinched her lightly with a dry grin on and his bottom lip between his teeth; he was in good spirits whenever a book was open nearby, it seemed. It was also unfair how ridiculously handsome he became when he relaxed.

She tried to hide her own smile; it bloomed out of habit she told herself, but really it was a reaction to his infectious charisma. Then she shivered as he splayed his fingers lightly over the stained red-brown skin of her arms, trailing over a barely visible vein. The intent of his touch was no longer clinical.

            _“Russus,”_ he said, in thought. Aleah just looked at him, and he explained in clear Latin. “[The color of your skin here.]” He gently tickled her arm again. “ _Russus._ ”

            “ _Russus,”_ Aleah repeated earnestly. He nodded once. “[We… cut the roots,]” she offered back. “[For red man clothes. Dyeing.]”

            They’d begun to incorporate immersive conversations nightly and now Vulpes smiled warmly at her attempt, and Aleah felt her chest flutter at his approval, before inwardly scolding herself as if she were a dog who kept coming back to roll on the same forbidden sofa. To keep herself from falling into the cycle of her mind reminding her of all her emotional shortcomings, she distracted the both of them with a question.

“[What is.. a Centurion?]” Aleah asked, remembering the man from the Old Mormon Fort earlier in the day.

“[A Centurion is an officer who commands a _century_ , or a unit of one hundred men that may be composed of several _contubernia_ ,]” Vulpes explained elegantly. “[There are many of them that serve within what is known as a cohort, and there are different ranks among the Centurions.]”

Aleah looked at him dumbfounded.

“[What?]” he asked.

“I barely understood a word of that, Vulpes,” she said to him in English, looking cynical. “You know my Latin is not at that level.”

“Then don’t ask in Latin if you don’t wish for me to respond in Latin, Aglaea,” he chastised firmly with a smile that matched her tone.

“I’m _trying_ to practice under your rules.”

“And I’m helping.”

“It’s not help if I can’t understand anything,” she countered.

“I’ve already told you, immersion is an effective tactic for new language learners of all ages, even when you don’t believe you understand,” he corrected her. “But it’s not a test and if you wish for me to explain in English, you need only ask. I won’t tolerate the attitude just because you’re discouraged.”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Everything is just so… overwhelming,” Aleah confessed tiredly, twiddling her thumbs absentmindedly. “There’s a lot to take in. I’m trying to adjust.”

Seeing her obvious frustration inspired a hollowing sensation in Vulpes’ chest, but he looked at her with mild eyes. His voice, however, was softer when he spoke again.

“You are doing better than you think.”

“Thanks. So, um… what did you say about Centurions, in English please?” she asked politely. Vulpes explained what he’d said before and then some, elaborating on a few other duties of the Centurions and the men under them, and briefly talked about the Praetorian Guard. He realized that before today, he only explained to her what his unit’s role was—it was uncommon for men to educate female slaves on such matters beyond a brief reminder; the priestesses gave a more in-depth education for groomed wives, but he asked to take over.

“Have you heard of the Centurion named Felix?” Hoping to find out more about the man, Aleah asked in an innocent voice.

“I have,” he informed her.

“So… do you know anything about him?” she pressed, trying to sound casual.

Vulpes’ face was unreadable.

“I know many things about many people, pet,” he affirmed, and Aleah ignored the warmth in her loins at the word “pet” but still bit her lip; if he didn’t before, now she was positive he knew it got her going. And on his end, he most definitely did know; his sly grin told her. As he said, he knew many things about many people. “What makes you ask?”

“He was at the Old Mormon Fort today, watching me,” she explained. Vulpes did not react so she continued. “It’s happened before, but the first time he ran off right after he saw me. This time he stuck around, but he was definitely watching me. It was kinda weird. I thought I should say something this time.”

Still, Vulpes did not speak. Instead, the intense, thousand-mile stare Aleah came to learn was his thinking face took over the features there. She shifted, waited for him to respond, then waved at him.

“Hello? Anyone home?” she tried.

“He is employed under the Legate,” Vulpes clarified aloud in a neutral tone, looking directly at her now. Aleah just shrugged expectantly. She heard rumors about the Legate and the horrors he inflicted upon slaves, but she’d never seen him and couldn’t place a face. What that had to do with Felix creeping on her, she was still trying to put together. “The Legate Lanius. He is the second most powerful man in the entire Legion, higher still than I. He only answers to one other and that is Caesar.”

“I know that, but what does that have to do with Felix?”

“Perhaps you should recall your encounter with the Legate, that should tell you,” Vulpes told her with narrowed eyes and a curled lip.

“I don’t think I’ve seen him yet,” she added, frowning as she tried to recall a face.

“Yes, you have. He was at your little show,” Vulpes enlightened her, bitterness seeping into his tone. He smiled without mirth. “The giant in the mask that you took great pains to appeal to while intoxicated. He caught your feather accessory. Remember now?”

“Oh…” Aleah muttered in recognition. With all of the awful shit that transpired, that night was a bit of a blur. His prompt made her memory clearer. The giant… _“Oh.”_

“ _’Oh’_ is right.”

She gulped.

“Felix is watching me… for him?”

“That would seem to be the case,” the spy confirmed sarcastically.

“Why?” she asked, genuinely shocked. Vulpes regarded her stonily.

“Why do you think?”

“I… well, I,” Aleah paused, her cheeks growing warm. “Well, I can imagine why, I mean… but… I belong to you. Don’t I? I’m yours already. Doesn’t that matter?”

His irritation was growing by the second at the news while she processed it, but he made an effort not to take it out on her any further. Aleah had taunted the bull but she didn’t know any better at the time and had long since stopped trying to spite him, and was now prepared to admit she was his, so Vulpes merely exhaled long and slow.

And that action made Aleah turn to look at him because it was a rare occurrence. Vulpes seldom to never let on how tired he was, so Aleah knew this was serious.

“Perhaps it does, but not to the Legate,” he calmly told her. “Men desire the property of other men. And a man like him has little regard for customs when it comes to getting what he wants. I’m surprised it’s taken him this much time.”

“But you’re not just anyone. You’re fourth in line, doesn’t that mean something to him?” Aleah asked.

“Yes,” he said. “It means I am beneath him.”

Aleah swallowed again, looking desperate, and he cut in to remind her that while the Legate may try, he would not succeed. He pulled her close by her chin.

“I have favor with Lucius, the third in succession and Caesar himself, but they are not beholden to my property, especially if someone were to imply that I could not protect what is mine. But know this: I would _kill_ Lanius before I saw him lay a hand on you, Aglaea,” Vulpes proclaimed with such resolve in his expression that she cowered some. “I have never doubted that I could do so. He is a skilled giant, but I am equally skilled and blessed with my own complementary gifts. Felix will no longer be an issue.”

The Nuka-cola pool eyes returned, fear for the ferocity of both men swimming around in them. What the hell had she gotten herself into? How did she come to be the object that not just one but now two extremely powerful Legion men vied for?

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

He let her go gently; now if only her growing anxiety would do the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. I'm so sorry. It's been too long. That's what happen when life knocks on the door, asking to be lived. Mostly good/exciting stuff, but still time consuming. No promises on future update timelines but I do vow this: if I decide to let the story die, I'll inform you all. And I have no plans of doing that any time soon, so technically no news is good news!
> 
> Gimme some feedback! Thoughts! Tell me what you ate for lunch!


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